The Protector: The Beginning
by LetsTalkLife
Summary: Lorraine Hield is a protector. When repots of a missing body and signs of a new werewolf come in from Beacon Hills, she and her dad move there thinking it was just an ordinary case. But we all know that in Beacon Hills, nothing is ordinary, and things get complicated really fast. Rewrite to include my OC, starts S1. Eventual Stiles/OC, T for language. First in the Protector series
1. Chapter one

**A/N: Hello everyone! I won't usually be doing an author's note at the beginning of a chapter, but because this is the first one I will make an exception.**

 **This is my first story on this site, a rewrite of the Teen Wolf series to include my OC, Lorraine. I won't be describing her looks in much detail in the story, but I picture her to look like Olivia Holt. It will also be a Stiles/OC story, though the slash part will only be mentioned.**

 **The first few chapters will contain events that aren't in the right order compared to the series, but it'll add up in the end. :) There might be a few inconsistencies regarding details, this is because I rewrote this story many times so if there's anything wrong please tell me and I'll do my best to change it. :)**

 **One last thing: I am not used to writing chapters for sites like these, but rather in the style you'd see in books. If you have any tips to adjust the style, please tell me ^-^**

 **That said, on with the story!**

Chapter one: Make a move, dad.

They were going on for at least a week now, the news reports. Ever since day one I had nagged dad. I didn't like the dull town we were living in at that moment, in fact, I hated it. I had no friends here and nothing ever happened. "That's only because we did our job right." dad had said over and over again. And I had given him the same reply over and over again. "They won't stop dad, they just move on." And then he'd reply with that he had to be sure that they were safe and yada yada yada. I sighed as I leaned back in the car chair, thinking back to the week that had passed.

" _Local authorities have found half of a young woman's body in the woods near Beacon Hills. They are currently searching for the second half, and the woods are off-limits for the time being. The sheriff hasn-" I switched the radio off and gave my dad a look. He closed his eyes, sighed and put his mug down on the table we were sitting at. His eyes said it all: No Lora. Not yet. I rolled my eyes and took out my phone, checking my email. Even more reports about the found body. Or half of it. I took a deep breath._

" _Jason sent me an-"_

" _No Lora!" dad snapped. I held my hands up in defence and he sighed, relaxing. "We talked about this." he said, much calmer now. I knew he was forcing himself to be."We are not going until we are sure." And with that our argument had ended. For the time being._

My attention was roughly taken from the memory when the car jerked to a halt. A sharp pain shot through my torso and the air was pushed out of my lungs as my seatbelt cut into it.

"What the hell dad!" I said, pushing myself back in my seat to loosen the belt, allowing me to breathe again. Dad didn't reply, he just slowly reached to the side of his chair. My heart froze for a second, because that's where he kept his gun, and if he was reaching for his gun... As casually as I could, I looked around to see where we were. As usual, dad didn't like using the practical routes. He preferred the 'scenic' ones. Meaning we spent most of the time riding through or next to a forest of some kind. Right now we were in the middle of a forest, riding over one of the main paths. Why dad had suddenly halted was because of what was happening to our left. There was another path, though a smaller one, leading to an open field. Something about the field seemed... off. Ever since I was a young girl dad had trained me to sense the supernatural when it was near, and I was almost sure that there was something going on in that field. Two young men were holding guns, aiming them at a lone tree standing in the field. Next to them was a third, holding a silver cage.

"Take your bow, approach one." dad said. I nodded, unfastened my seatbelt and got out of the car, while he did the same. Whilst I walked to the trunk to take my bow out, he walked towards the group near the tree. Now I should probably explain what approach one means: Approach tactic number one, meaning that he would approach the group directly and I would go around them in case he needed back up. Which I was doing right now. I had taken my bow and arrows from the trunk and was now walking through the woods as quietly as I could. Which meant going really, really slow. And still, after almost eight years of practising, making no noise in the woods was impossible. By the time I was on one third of my route, dad was already talking to the three men.

"Gentlemen, might I ask what is going on here?" he asked, giving them a warm smile. The one holding the silver cage put it down on the ground and walked towards him.

"Nothing at all sir, my buddy's bird escaped and were trying to get it, that's all." he said, giving him a fake smile in return. I froze as a twig snapped underneath my feet, praying they hadn't heard me. After a few seconds I looked, from the corner of my eye. They were still talking, so I continued walking. This time more careful where I put my feet.

"Ah, of course." dad said, looking over the man's shoulder, towards the other two. "With... guns. I see." The two men turned around, glaring at him. The third, which I now could classify as the leader, tilted his head at dad, his smile gone. I was increasing my pace now, they were focusing on dad anyway, so I was willing to take the risk.

"I'm sorry sir, but were going to ask you to leave." the leader said, raising one hand in the air. Before I knew it, the two men were aiming their guns at him. I almost let out a scoff. Amateurs. I only had about five metres left to go now. I slowed down, this part was crucial. The leader instructed one of the man to "Get back to the bird." A gunshot. My eyes went to my dad: still standing. Then the other guy must've shot, so... I looked at the tree. A large black bird fell out, probably a raven... or a crow. Okay. So maybe not supernatural. I might not be as good at sensing things as I let you believe. But shooting birds like that was still illegal, so we were still doing the right thing.

"That's enough." dad said. "I'll give you one last warning. Leave the Raven alone." The leader looked surprised for a second, then snickered. He picked up the cage and threw it behind him.

"Lock it up." he said. The guy who'd shot the bird followed his orders, picking up the bird's dead body and putting it in the cage. Dad sighed, looking down to his feet. I hid behind a large tree at the edge of the field. It wouldn't take long for the men to notice me now. Gunshots echoed through the field, but I had to wait. If I had learned anything from practice, it was to trust my father. So if he didn't give me the signal, then I wouldn't-

"Now!" dad shouted. I waited, just as planned. For the men to tense, relax, and then laugh at my dad. And when they were laughing, they wouldn't pay attention. When the laughter began, I took an arrow, placed it on my bow, jumped into the field and fired it. "Go" meant shoot to kill. "Now" meant shoot to maim or severely injure. There's also a "no", not to be confused with "now". Trust me, I'd know, I learned that one the hard way. Before the men had managed to recover form the surprise, I had fired two arrows: one in a leg of gunman number one, on in an arm of gunman number two. They both screamed and tried to grasp their injured limbs. The leader shouted at us in rage, grabbing for his own gun. Before he had the chance to take it out, dad had already taken his own gun and aimed it at the leader's forehead. We all stood still for a few seconds: Dad aiming at the leader, me aiming at gunman number one, gunman number one aiming at me, and gunman number two struggling to get the arrow out of his arm while crying out in pain.

"Order them to lower their guns." dad said in a low voice. When the leader didn't react he pressed the barrel of the gun more tightly to his head. "Now." he said. The leader grumbled something, before shouting:

"Guns down!" Hesitantly, the gunmen dropped their weapons to the ground. I walked towards them to pick them up, making sure to stay out of their range so they couldn't grab me. (Learned that one the hard way as well.) Dad waited for me to get back to his side before giving the next order.

"Go to the tree." he said, stepping back from the leader and allowing him to stand up. Still aiming his gun at them, he glanced at the cage and then looked at me. "Go get the kit." he said. I groaned, but did as he asked. Apparently he didn't believe that that bird was dead, and in that case it needed medical treatment. I don't believe that a bird can survive a shot like that, but I ran back to the car anyway. There, I opened up the trunk and pulled out the medical kit, leaving my bow in it's place. Running back to the field, I saw that dad was already busy with tying the men to a tree.

"Have you searched for knives?" I yelled, setting down the kit next to the cage. I didn't need to see him to know that he rolled his eyes.

"Yes Lora, I have in fact searched for knives." he said. "Just get busy with the Raven." I opened up the medical kit and looked at the lifeless body of the bird in the cage. I wasn't exactly a vet, I tended to specialise more in humans than animals, but that thing was as sure as dead. The second after that thought ran through my mind, the bird started twitching. I took a sedative syringe from the kit, holding it in one hand while opening the cage with the other. The bird made spastic movements in attempt to get out, not allowing me to inject the sedative.

"Dad?" I called out, looking back to see him tie the final knots. He looked at me, nodded, and tightened the rope once more before running towards me. "Could you hold him still?" I asked whilst he crouched down next to me. He scooped up the bird out of the cage and held it still so I could inject the sedative. Which wasn't easy, considering the three men were still yelling about how "we couldn't just leave them there" and "what if an animal comes and kills them". It was both distracting and typical. Once the bird stopped his spastic movements I started examining it. As I said, I wasn't a vet. But through the... adventures me and my dad had had, I picked up a few things. For instance, how to see if a bird had broken it's wing.

"Its wing is broken." I mumbled, reaching for the splinting equipment, but my dad shook his head. I looked at him with a frown.

"Just place it in the right angle, it'll be fine." he said. I wasn't sure how that would make it all better, but if there was one person I listened to, it would be my dad. So I carefully took the wing and placed it so that the bones were all lined up again.

"So now what?" I asked, looking at dad, who just nodded back to the bird in his hands. When I looked at it, it was right as rain again, looking back at me with intelligence in it's black eyes. In all things I'd seen, and that is a lot, I had never seen an ordinary bird heal that fast. Unless... there was one type of bird who could manage that. "Is it a Raven, as in one of the Ravens?" I asked, looking at dad, who nodded. Ravens were the birds of death and prophecy, some said that they worked at the Devil's command, or God's. I wasn't sure about that, but I did know that Ravens were incredibly powerful.

"I think it's still a young one." my father said, tilting his head. "See? The wingspan will be much bigger when it grows up." he said, tapping on one of its wings. That woke it up, the sedative's effect wearing off within seconds. It clapped its wings with abnormal strength, forcing dad let it go. As soon as it got loose it flew up in the air and dove down to the tree. It was so fast, by the time I had turned around, the two of the three men were dead, the third one soon following as the Raven put its claws in his neck, after which it flew up again. There was no blood or anything on the bodies, not even a wound. They were just... dead. "I think it's angry. Lora, get back to the car." dad said, pushing me back.

"Is it angry? I hadn't noticed!" I yelled, closing the medical kit as fast as I could. Judging his speed, the Raven could be anywhere by now.

"Lora!" dad yelled, ushering me to hurry up. He really didn't need to do that, because I had a perfect view of our situation here. Yes, helping a bird of death heal, great idea, ten out of ten would recommend. Medical kit in one hand, I started running towards the car. Looking back at it, it was pointless. If the Raven wanted to kill me, it wouldn't matter how hard I ran. Once the Raven sets its eye on you, you're dead. Seeing the car come closer and closer, hope started to form in my mind. I might make it. Maybe dad could hold it off long enough to get away. Yes, we could make it. We always did. We had to. There was a loud scream. The sharp pain of claws between my shoulder blades made me realise it was my scream.

Blackness.

 _I walked after my dad through the supermarket. There wasn't even anyone there except us, that's how dull this town was._

" _Three animal sightings in Beacon Hills." I said, showing him my phone screen, which he pushed away. "This isn't a coincidence. For all we know, two werewolves survived that fire. There must be a third one involved, maybe it just got bitten, maybe someone else survived, we don't know, but there must be a reason they're being this reckless." I said, trying to persuade him to move once again. It had been two days since the half of a woman's body was found. I just couldn't stand the fact that there were people... well, I say people, living things out there that needed our help and we were sitting here doing nothing._

" _I want to wait a little longer, tie up loose ends." dad said, making my eyes widen. He'd always said no up till now. So something must've changed, but I didn't care, all I cared about right now was getting out of this town._

" _So that's a yes?" I asked, not able to hide my smirk. Dad grumbled something, pushing our cart further into the bread aisle. "I'll go look for houses then." I said, opening internet on my phone._

" _No Lora." dad said, taking my phone from me. I scoffed._

" _Oh, do you want to live in a caravan then?" I asked, taking my phone back. "I don't see the problem. They need us, we go there, we help them. That's our thing." Dad stopped and turned around, his expression dark._

" _It's not that simple. There are others, they don't agree with our... beliefs. They're dangerous Lora, and I'm not taking any risks." Just as quick as he had turned to face me, he had turned away. I could feel the tension, and I knew that I really shouldn't ask but..._

" _Is this about mum?" I asked, hearing him sigh but continuing anyway. "Are you ever going to tell me what happened to her? It's been six years dad. Six. Years. She woul-" Dad slammed down his fist on the cart, making it shake and rattle._

" _Enough." he said, giving me the car keys. I opened my mouth to protest. "Sit and wait in the car? Even grocery shopping was better than that. "Get in the car Lorraine." dad said, taking my wrist and pushing the keys in my hand. I closed my mouth. It might seem as a cliché, but it was not good when he used my full name. With the keys in my hand I walked back to the car, waiting for dad to come back._

I was lying on my back when I woke up, not sure where. Whatever I was lying on, it was soft, it felt like leather, and it was moving. When I tried to get up a sharp pain shot through my back, exactly where the Raven had placed its claws. Dad's head snapped towards me as I let out a groan of pain.

"Keep down." dad said, trying to make it sound like an order but it came out more like a plead. Which must mean that he was worried, very worried. Not wanting to make him any more worried, I did as he asked and laid down on the back seat of the car.

"What happened?" I asked, my voice hoarse. Dad shook his head, hands on the wheel.

"I don't know." he said.

"Where are we going?"

"To a friend, you've met him before. Doctor Deaton?" he asked, trying to distract me. Not that I minded though, at that point distraction was very nice. And I believed that somewhere I did memorise doctor Deaton. He was kind, wise, and helped mom and dad out a lot... I think.

"Was he the black one?" I asked, pretending not to see dad roll his eyes. I didn't really care, so what if he's black, why would that be an insult? I'm white, he's black, no need to wind yourself around it.

"Yes, he's the afro American one." dad said, empathising the words afro American. Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. As I said: I didn't feel the need to wind around things that could be simple. The fact that I was going to see Deaton again made me happy though, he always let me help take care of the animals. However that happiness didn't last for long, as the realisation that there was a good chance that I wouldn't even make it to Deaton. Or if he even could help. The Raven always gets you.

"Will he be able to he-" I groaned as we hit a bump in the road, causing pain to shoot into my back again. Black spots started forming and growing, slowly taking away my sight.

" _How about this?" dad said, handing me his phone as I sat down on our couch with a cup of coffee in my hand. On the phone screen was a picture of a house, and something in my memory was telling me that I'd been there before._

" _Hold on..." I said, scrolling through the pictures of the house. "We've already lived in this house once." It would've been a long time ago, but I was sure that we'd lived there. Was it... five years ago? At least four... or maybe-_

" _Six." dad said, as if reading my thoughts. "Beacon Hills was the place where your mother died." It was after he'd spoken those words when I understood why he was reluctant to go there. I was only ten years old when mom had died, I didn't remember much of it. But dad... he must've remembered it like it was yesterday. I sighed, giving the phone back to him. It didn't matter if mom had died there, we still had to go, it was our duty. To protect, human and supernatural alike. Dad knew that._

" _We don't have to live in that house." I said. "We could go seek out a different one, maybe then it wouldn't be as..." I was about to say painful, but dad was shaking his head._

" _It's the best house for us in the city, believe me I checked. I'll be fine Lora, really." he said, taking my coffee away from me. I let out a cry of protest when he drank a big gulp of it, but he ignored it, nodding his head towards the door. "Go upstairs, were leaving tomorrow." I was surprised and relieved: that was quick. I stood up from my seat and ran upstairs. After all these years of moving I'd learned how to pack quickly and efficiently. This time I couldn't stay focused though, it was something about Beacon Hills, something special. But I couldn't recall what. What I could recall was that we had lived there for a pretty long time, one, maybe two years max. (We often stayed in one town for only a few months.) It was also the place where mom had died in an accident. It might've been one of the few places where I had friends. Doing what me and dad did wasn't really suitable for long-term relationships, even if they were just friends. I had taken out all my suitcases when I opened up my closet, a strange white light coming from it. I tried to scream, but not a sound came out. Soon the white light had consumed everything around me._

It took a while to adjust to the light in the room. Everything was white. I thought that I was in heaven for a while. Until I realised that I don't believe in a heaven so that didn't last long. Also, the slowly appearing grey ceiling sort of gave it away. I shivered as my body realised how cold the metal thing I was lying on was.

"She's waking up." a familiar male voice said. It came from my left, where a black man in a doctor's uniform stood. Wait, not a doctor... a vet. Well, that explained the metal work bench. I heard footsteps approaching, followed by dad's face hanging over me. He looked at me in worry.

"Does that mean that she'll be okay?" he asked, looking at the vet, who sighed. Seeing him again made me remember; this was doctor Deaton. Or veterinarian Deaton, if you want to get technical.

"It means that she'll live, for now." Deaton said, walking towards me as well now. "Let's get you up." he said, putting a hand on my lower back to support me as he pulled me up. The room was definitely a vet's room: brick walls, lots of metal equipment, metal workbench not suited for humans (my back was complaining, okay?).

"What happened? Didn't death bird thing get me?" I asked, looking at them, waiting for an answer. They glanced at each other, as if having a silent conversation on what to say, or who was going to say it.

"You should tell her." the vet said, taking out his phone. "I'm sorry, I forgot to call Scott, he works here. Should've arrived two minutes ag-" the door swung open and a teenage boy, around my age, stepped in. He was average height, had short wavy brown hair and brown eyes. He was panting and there were pearls of sweat forming on his forehead.

"Sorry I'm-" he said, stopping when he noticed us. "...late." he finished, looking at us in hesitation. "I'm sorry, should I...?" he left the question hanging in the air.

"Scott, if you could leave us for a minute?" Deaton said, nodding before gesturing at the door. The boy, Scott, nodded and walked out of the room again. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but something was... off about him. I hadn't forgotten the 'you tell her' part of our previous conversation, and was now looking at dad in wait of the thing he was supposed to tell me. He noticed, and looked at Deaton, who sighed and turned to me.

"Lora, what that Raven did to you... it almost never happens. Once every few decades. You survived the Raven's claw." he explained, his voice was calm and a bit soothing, but it only confused me more.

"So what happened to the others? You said that it has happened before." I said, just a spark of hope lighting up inside of me. I had always been taught that the Raven always gets you. Maybe I could be an exception.

"Some lived on for a few years, but most..." Deaton shook his head, a sorrowful look on his face. With that line, the spark of hope died inside of me, along with my future. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream... but I didn't. I was so calm inside, almost empty. Dad had tears in his eyes. Last time I'd seen him cry was when mom died. He turned towards Deaton.

"Is there nothing you can do?" he asked, when the door opened once again. A sheriff in uniform, along with his German shepherd stepped through it. He looked almost as confused as Scott had when he saw us.

"I'm sorry... am I interrupting?" he asked, looking at us with a small frown on his face. He pointed at dad. "Pete?" he asked, tilting his head. "Is that you?" I looked at dad, who had no trace of tears left on his face any more. Instead, he smiled. Anyone who didn't know him as well as I did would've thought it was a real one.

"Stillinski you old bastard." he said, walking towards the sheriff to shake his hand. "Last time I saw you you were a mere deputy." The sheriff laughed heartily, waving it off with his hand. He then looked at me, and his grin widened.

"Lorraine!" he said, walking up to me to shake my hand. "It's been too long. Still recognise me?" he asked, smiling. I shook my head, a small smile on my face.

"Sorry sheriff. But it's nice to meet you again." I said, seeing his smile falter for a second. He let go of my hand and took a step back, so the four of us were standing in a circle now. Well, I was still sitting on the workbench, but same thing. There was a silence for a good twenty seconds, with the four of us looking at each other. I wanted to know more about what was going to happen to me, dad wanted to get out of there but not be rude, and I had no clue what the sheriff and Deaton wanted at that moment, but it sure as hell wasn't working out right now. After about thirty more seconds dad cleared his throat and spoke up.

"Well, Lora and I should be off. We still have to unpack." he said, walking towards me to help me get off the workbench. A plus side to our family being protectors was that we had a huge network, that network could find a trustworthy moving company in no time, so we only had to unpack our clothes and some other personal belongings, the interior of the house was already finished. We walked out of the room and into the waiting room, where we said a quick goodbye to Scott before leaving and going home, where we would unpack our last things and the move would be over. Now there was one more thing coming... of course except trouble with supernatural creatures and my now even more inevitable death. No, the true horror of them all: my first day at a new school.

 **A/N: Hello again! The fact that you're reading this tells me that you've made it through the chapter! (Or just scrolled down) I hope you enjoyed reading it (or scrolling through it, I guess) and perhaps even leave a review?**

 **Thank you for reading, and I'll see you all after the next chapter!**

 **~Lilly**


	2. Chapter two

**Chapter two: Gaps**

You see, as many other teenagers, I wasn't a big fan of school. Oh my god Lorraine, what a big fucking surprise! Teenagers don't like school? I would've never guessed!

Anyway, the teachers, the drama, the work, it all just seemed a bit... pointless to me. Of course, there were a few subjects that I enjoyed: PE, biology, and one or two things of chemistry and history. But I think it's safe to say that I really don't like school. And yet, every time we moved to a new town dad forced me to go... except once.

"Are you sure that you want this?" dad asked one last time. At first he hadn't wanted me to go at all, and after a short argument he insisted on driving me to school, where we were now parked. I already had one hand on the door opener.

"Well now that you say it, maybe I'll- yes dad, I'm sure." I said, rolling my eyes and opening the car door. I stepped out of the car and swung my dark green backpack over my shoulder. Dad grabbed my wrist, about to ask a question. I turned around to face him. "Yes dad, I'm sure that I feel fine." I said before throwing the door shut and waving him off. I really didn't like school, but I hoped that going anyway would show dad that I was fine.

The principal was supposed to pick me up outside of the school entrance and then guide me to my first lesson, so I sat down on a bench and waited for him to do so... I'm sorry, did I mention the fact that on the parking lot there was one school bus that was torn apart and covered in blood?

Good thing me and dad came to this town, plus: finally, after all these weeks, something exciting happens, and it doesn't involve me getting killed. Yet, at least. I tried to figure out what happened to the bus, but only after a minute or two, the entrance door to the school swung open and the principal came up to me.

"Miss Hield?" he asked, looking at me and pointing one finger at me. I nodded and stood up from the bench. He walked towards me with a smile on his face. "Miss Hield, welcome to our school. If you could come with me." he said, trying to lead me to the entrance, but seeing my interest in the bus. "Oh, that. Wild animal attack, but I can assure you, it has been taken care of." he said, directing me to the entrance and through the halls, which all looked the same to me.

Greyish floor, white ceiling, blue lockers next to the walls everywhere... I had no idea how I was ever going to find my way around this place. The principal eventually stopped in front of a wooden door of one of the classrooms, on which he knocked. He didn't wait for an answer, but opened the door right away and walked into the room as I followed him. Looking at the tables and the atomic notes on the blackboard, this would be chemistry. Nice. The principal turned to the class.

"This is Lorraine Hield, she's new to our school and I trust that you will make her feel welcome." he said, looking at the sheepish faces of who I supposed were my new classmates. I soon noticed that the boy from the vet, Scott, was also there. He had been talking to the boy behind him when we got in, but was quick to turn around. He looked worried, and now that I'd come in the room, confused.

"Can I leave her with you, mister Harries?" the principal asked the teacher, who nodded.

"She can sit right there." he said, pointing at one of the two empty seats in the front.

Sitting alone during first period, first day? Some may find it depressing but it was a blessing to me. I sat down and took out my books whist the teacher continued with writing notes on the blackboard. Even though I sat in the front, I could still hear Scott and the boy behind him talking. And apparently the teacher could too, as he turned around with a rather annoyed look on his face.

"Stillinski, if that's your idea of a hushed whisper, you might wanna pull those earphones out more often." he said, putting his hands on his hips.

The boy, Stillinski (Where did I hear that name?) looked shocked, or even offended. His mouth hung wide open and he put up his hands in the air, but he wasn't able to bring out a single word. Mister Harries wasn't done yet, though.

"And I think you and mister McCall would benefit from a little distance, yes?" he asked, looking at the two. Stillinski let out a small scoff, looking lost.

"W- no." he said, his mouth still hanging open. Mister Harries smirked, pointing at him, and then the seat next to me. I internally groaned. Why? Why me?

Stillinski picked up his books and walked to the front, everything about him screaming reluctance.

"Tell me when the separation becomes too much." Harries said, ignoring Stillinski's fake laugh as he turned back to the blackboard.

I heard the sound of books falling down on the desk as the boy sat down next to me. From the corner of my eye I saw him staring at me, but I kept focused on my textbook, as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. Oh joy, isomers! Something tapped lightly on my arm, causing me more that just annoyance. There were only a few options of things he could say and most of them involved social interaction later in the day. You might consider me rude, but after years of making friends only to leave months later has taught me that it's better to not make friends at all than get hurt.

"Lora?" he asked, sounding confused. I sighed and turned my head towards him. He had short, dark hair that was very, very short. He had dark brown eyes and a nose that was a bit… broad. But definitely not ugly, he was… okay. Didn't like the hair though. Or his apparent need for social interaction.

"Yes, that is my name, good job for hearing... it..." I said, trailing off as I realised that the principal hadn't introduced me as Lora at all, he had used my full name. Only people close to me called me Lora.

"You remember me?" he asked, sounding almost desperate. I frowned as I looked at his face, as it did seem familiar. Also, his name... oh I could've slapped myself in the face. This must be the sheriff's kid.

"Do I?" I asked, not quite sure how to act around him. The sheriff seemed to know me, so his kid must know me too. But from what? Stillinski looked disappointed, the small smile on his face falling.

"Should've known better, with you always moving." he mumbled, looking down his own books and turning away from me. My eyes widened.

"Oh crap, I really did meet you before did I?" I said, feeling the urge to groan grow. I should've expected this, moving back to a place I'd lived before.

"Stiles?" he tried, and it all clicked.

Actually, it didn't. I'd kept a list when I was younger, wrote down the name of every friend I'd made. It was a relatively short list, and I tried to keep it that way with a few exceptions. But now I knew his name, that didn't mean I actually knew him. So yeah, that was the only clicking that happened there. Sorry.

"Almost didn't recognize you." I said, trying my best to put on a fake smile. If he really had been my friend once, I could at least try and be kind to him. There would have to be a good reason for him to end up on the list. Maybe we could even become friends again. ...And probably move away a few weeks after, yes, great idea Lora. I mentally shook my head at the thought, drawing my attention back to Stiles I'd expected him to smile at my statement, but instead he looked disappointed.

"Nah, you still don't recognize me." he said, shaking his head. "Nice of you to pretend, though." he said, turning away from me to copy the notes from the blackboard. Wow I felt bad. I actually felt bad. He seemed like a nice guy and I think I just genuinely hurt him. Never would I have guessed that I would be the one to try and continue a conversation with someone today, but still I grabbed his arm and forced him to turn back towards me.

"Look Stiles, I'm s-"

"Hey, I think they've found something!" A girl that sat next to the window on our left yelled. It took less than five seconds for the entire class to jump up out of their seats and look at what was going on. Stiles jumped up too, so I followed him towards the window.

Outside there was a man on a stretcher being rolled to an ambulance by two medics. My first impression was that he was dead, but that theory was dismissed when he jolted upright, screaming. We all did a small jump back. I looked around to see that Scott and Stiles weren't standing at the window. Turning around I saw that they were standing in the back of the class. Stiles was trying to convince Scott of something. Scott seemed to distracted to hear it, instead he just said three small words. They were soft, but combined with lip reading there was no way of going around what Scott said, with a horrified expression on his face:

"I did that."

Ah great, of course, another one of these. We've spent most of our time on these, and it's always the same: new alpha, needs pack, goes out biting teenagers at random. And the solution is always the same: stop the alpha, gather some lone omegas and teach the new werewolves how to deal with it.

I looked at Scott from head to toe, scanning him. He might become a good werewolf. Sure he wasn't athletic, but he could train. He was very scared, but also not dumb. I hoped. Then, in the middle of what must've seemed like me checking him out, our eyes locked. His eyes were wide, he was terrified. Stiles looked at him, then followed his gaze towards me. His mouth fell open, and he took a deep breath to say something, when the bell rang.

Everyone, even the teacher, hurried up to pack their bags and get out of the room as quick as they could, wanting to see what was going on outside. Or just be first in line for lunch. Everyone was gone, except for us. We were still staring at each other, the two boys with their mouths slightly open and me smirking slightly. We remained that way for about half a minute, and when I'd concluded that they weren't going to talk, I did.

"So..." I said, pointing at the window behind me. "You did that?" Scott's mouth fell open further.

"W- I- No, of course not." he said, stumbling over his words. I didn't need to be able to hear his heartbeat to tell that he was lying. Either he did almost kill that person, or he was convinced he did.

"It's all right Scott, I think I know." I said, my smirk turning into a comforting smile. "I get it too." The two boys were now gaping at me, thinking that I was another werewolf.

"Really?" Scott asked, looking at Stiles in worry.

"Once a month, uncontrollable emotions, weird cravings and blood?" I asked, the smirk back again. They were now very confused, and it was evident on their faces. I let out a laugh. "I'm kidding. But I wasn't about the knowing part." "Scott, did you get bitten?"

If I was wrong on this, and he wasn't a werewolf as I thought he was, this would turn out to be a really awkward conversation. Dad always told me not to be too straight forward, but I liked to do things my way. Even if that had resulted in me being the weird kid after my first day at school once. Okay twice.

Scott hesitated, glancing at Stiles, who was just as clueless as he was.

"We can help." I said. "Me and my dad, it's what we do."

"Who are you?" Scott asked, frowning at me whilst backing up a bit towards the door. As if he could outrun me. Okay, if he was a werewolf, he could, but I'd still be able to keep up with Stiles.

"I'm a protector."

~o~

We were walking through the halls, break would still last for another thirty or so. Scott and Stiles had decided that in order to be sure if they could trust me, they would have to interrogate the shit out of me first.

"Who did you say you were?" Scott asked.

"Protectors, me and my dad. We protect those who can't protect themselves. Both natural and supernatural."

"And since when?" Stiles asked.

"Well, my family has done this for centuries, and I started my official training at age twelve."

"So did you know?" Stiles asked, making me frown. "Know when you were last here?" he clarified, seeming a bit... hurt. That if I'd known that I hadn't told him.

"No, I didn't. I w-" I cut off my own sentence. There was a sudden blank space in my mind, a gap. And I had no clue what to fill it with. "Doesn't matter, I didn't know back then. Right now Scott has no alpha to guide him, no pack, and..." I scanned him again. "Absolutely no clue what's going on, now do you?" I said with a sigh..

"But how do we know that we can trust you?" Scott asked, grabbing my arm to halt me. I turned towards him.

"Because I'm your best bet. And we can help you, just give us a chance to pr-"

"Oh my God! Lorraine!" a girl voice called out, and before I knew what was happening someone was hugging me. And it wasn't a gentle one either. It was a squeeze-the-air-out-of-your-lungs-until-you-nearly-faint-from-an-oxygen-deficit-hug™. After a few seconds I saw that that someone was a girl with strawberry blonde hair, green eyes and afsappearance that screamed that she was the queen bee of the school.

"I can't believe that you're back! We should totally have lunch together." she said, giving me a seemingly fake smile, which I returned.

"Yes, of course, we should. Now if you'd care to give me your name?" I asked, dropping my smile and stepping away from her. The fake smile on the girl's face was replaced with real disappointment. She looked truly hurt for a second, only to cover it up with the same fake smile from earlier.

"Of course, you must've forgotten. Moving, and all that." she said, extending a hand. "Lydia, Lydia Martin." I nodded and shook her hand. I inhaled sharply as an image flashed in my mind. It only lasted a second, so I couldn't see what it was. I opened my eyes and smiled, pretending nothing had happened.

"Right, I'm Lorraine." I said, something about her feeling familiar. I tilted my head, trying to remember as I looked at her, because her appearance was also familiar. "I'm sorry, I just... do you have a picture with the two of us or something? To, you know, jog my memory." Lydia's eyes widened for a moment, before she nodded.

"Of course." she said, again that fake smile on her face, now more forced than ever, as she took out her phone and scrolled through her pictures. It didn't take her long to show me a picture with two girls, both blonde, both the same green eyes, both equally tall.

"They always mistook us for sisters." Lydia said, genuine emotions seeping through. She was sounding almost nostalgic. "Of course, not any more." she said, taking the phone back. It was true, over the years Lydia's hair had grown more ginger, and my hair more light blonde. We both grew up, so the difference in our facial features stood out more. Eyes were still the same though.

"Hey babe." a guy with light brown hair said, putting an arm around Lydia's waist and kissing her on the cheek. Oh great, every jock from every teen film. Ever. Including the over the top good looks. "So, lunch?" he asked. Lydia looked at me, almost pleading. I really had no desire to go with her, or jock boy, but my curiosity got the better of me: why, after all those years, did she still have a picture of the two of them on her phone? That must mean something. So I gave one last warning glare to Scott and Stiles, and walked with Lydia and Jock boy, towards the cafeteria.

~o~

Lydia seemed to know what was best for me. Or she thought she did. After a broad explanation of why I shouldn't eat what food, I eventually had filled my tray with a bottle of water, an apple, a ham cheese sandwich and a small bag of crisps I managed to smuggle with me. As I walked after Lydia through the crowds of the cafeteria I saw that the table we were heading for was the one Scott and Stiles were at. Odd, I wouldn't expect them to be the popular ones. Oh who am I kidding, they aren't the popular ones. Lydia sat down next to Scott and directed me to sit opposite of her, next to Stiles.

"Figure what out?" Lydia asked, putting her purse down on the floor next to her as she sat down. Scott and Stiles looked at each other, Stiles letting out a weird scoff of surprise as Scott mumbled a bit before bringing out the words: "Oh, just... homework."

"Yeah." Stiles added, before turning to Scott and whispering: "Why is she sitting with us?" I rolled my eyes, leaned in and whispered: "You know, you whisper quite loudly. And it's probably because of miss soon to be popular right there." I said, nodding at a pretty girl with dark brown hair sitting down next to Scott.

"Hey, thanks for saving me a seat." she said, putting down Scott's bag that had been on the seat.

"Yeah, no problem." Scott said, looking at her with a dreamy smile. Poor boy, he was completely in love with her, wasn't he? I gave Stiles a knowing look before leaning back in my chair, starting my sandwich. Meanwhile jock boy sat down at the end of the table, and a few other people had sat down next to Stiles and the pretty girl. I guess I wouldn't have a chance to investigate my… past relationships here this lunch.

"So I heard that it was an animal attack." one guy with dark hair said. He looked like a sports guy, a nice one though. Probably gay.

"Who's he?" I whispered to Stiles, who proceeded to introduce me to everyone in a hushed voice. Nice jock was called Danny, the jock jock was called Jackson, the pretty girl Allison ("Two l's" Scott had added) and then there were just the appendixes of the group of who I apparently didn't need to know the name of. By the time he was done, we had moved on to another topic, Lydia wanting to talk about "something slightly more fun, please." before turning to Scott and Allison.

"Like where we are going Sunday night." she said, surprising the two of them. She frowned when she saw. "Wait, you did say that you were going out, right?" Allison quickly swallowed her drink and nodded.

"Uh, yeah, we... didn't know where to go yet." she said, looking at Scott and silently asking him for approval. It was clear that they hadn't expected Lydia to come with them. Lydia let out a small scoff. I leaned back in my chair even more as I observed the disaster unfolding in front of me.

"Well, if the five of us are hanging out, we ought to do something fun. I am not sitting at home watching lacrosse videos all night." Lydia said, throwing a judgemental look at Jackson, who didn't seem to care. Until he realised that he had to go out with Scott too. Well, not with Scott, but you know what I mean.

"H- hanging out?" Scott asked, looking at Lydia with a frown. "Like... the five of us? Hanging out?" Allison looked at him, her eyes wide, not knowing what to do either.

"Well, yeah. Sounds fun." she said. Next to me, on one side Stiles buried his face in his hands, not being able to look at this trainwreck of a conversation. On the other side of me Jackson let out a huge scoff.

"Yeah, well, you know what else sounds fun?" he asked, picking up a fork. "Stabbing myself in the face with this fork."

"Oh you won't have to do it yourself if you keep acting like that." I said, looking at him dead serious. Not even ten minutes in and I had plenty of reasons not to like him. He was bewildered for a moment, before he put down the fork.

"Doesn't matter. Who's number five anyway?" he asked, whilst I continued my meal. I stopped though when everyone at the table seemed to be staring at me.

"What?" I asked, swallowing a bite of my sandwich. Lydia looked at me with an all too meaningful glare. "Oh. Yeah no." I said, shaking my head. Half of the people at the table stared at me as if I were insane, the other half very confused. I started right back at them. "What?" I snapped. "I barely even know you." A few of them stopped staring, others kept glancing at me. With a huff I took my plate and stood up, walking to an empty table to have lunch there, alone. Being dragged along wasn't in my top ten list of activities.

~o~

The rest of the first day at school had gone as usual. Scott and Stiles were avoiding me, Lydia seemed to be staring at me but didn't approach me, and Jackson was too caught up in his hair to even notice I was there. I was walking through the hallway, towards the school entrance. Dad had phoned me that he would pick me up, and he wasn't a big fan of waiting. Turning around the corner, I saw Stiles talking with a stressed out Scott, who shortly after ran off.

"Hey, you didn't-" Stiles tried, extending his arm towards Scott, who just kept running. "Am I attractive to gay guy- oh forget it." he said, turning around, seeing me walking towards him. His eyes widened, but he didn't move. Maybe he was hoping that I didn't see him. Or that he would magically turn invisible like a chameleon. I gave him a small wave."Hey... Lora, I mean, Lorraine." he said, ready to walk away.

"Hold on." I said, pulling out a piece of paper and a pen from my bag and jotting something on it before handing it to him.

"What's that?" he asked, looking at it.

"My phone number." I said, making him look up from the paper, eyes wide. I let out a small laugh. "Not like that, it's for when you decide to trust me. Or when there's an emergency." I explained, closing my backpack again and swinging it over my shoulder. "See ya." I said, walking off and saying one last thing as I did so: "And yes Stiles, you're very attractive to gay guys."

~o~

I walked over the school grounds, towards the car park. I knew what was coming next and I was dreading it. You know, for a parent who trains their child to battle with all kinds of creatures, dad was a rather worried parent. This can be concluded by the conversation I have with him every time I come back from my first day at school.

"How did it go?" he asked, not even giving me a chance to fully open the door. I threw my bag in the car and sat down next to dad.

"Fine, I think I've found our beta. Or omega, or whatever he is." I said as dad started up the car. "I assume you've heard of the bus attack?" I asked, seeing dad nod from the corner of my eye. "Well, he thinks that he did that."

"Thinks?" dad asked, driving us out of the car park. I nodded.

"Didn't tell me how or why. Was too busy interrogating me." I said, looking out of the window.

"Did you tell them?" dad asked, less annoyed than usual. He wasn't too happy with me telling potential supernaturals that we were protectors. I had a theory why he wasn't acting like he usually does. Actually, it's not that hard to figure out.

"You're worried about me." I said. It wasn't a question, it wasn't an accusation, it was a statement. Or a fact, if you'd like. Dad let out a sigh, so I turned towards him.

"Deaton said that I could have years left to live, and I feel fine." I said, attempting to reassure him but failing. If anything, I had made things worse by bringing up the subject.

"Could, Lora, could. He also said that most didn't make it to that point." he said, turning his head towards me. Anger, frustration, despair, and more, all showing on his face. We neared a crossing in the road, with two children crossing it without noticing us. Acting on instinct, I grabbed for the hand brake, forcing our car to halt. With eyes wide in shock, dad and I sat panting in the car.

"We'll talk more when we're home." dad said, his voice stern as he took off the hand break and started the car again. The rest of our journey was spent in a tense silence.

~o~

As dad had promised, as soon as we got home we sat down at the dinner table with some drinks and started to put everything next to each other in order to figure out what was happening, what had happened, and what would happen next.

"So, Deaton is working on ways to... extend your life." dad said, taking a paper out of his pocket and jotting it down.

"There's nothing we can do about that then." I said, crossing my arms as I leaned back in my chair. Somehow I didn't feel stressed out about it. I was just… calm. "Also, Scott is the new wolf. I don't think he has an alpha there for him."

"Anyone else?" dad asked, pausing his writing to look up at me. I shrugged.

"Besides his friend? Don't think so. Full moon is Saturday, he won't be able to control it. Moon's too strong. Besides, if he killed someone last night, can't get much worse can it?" I said, stirring my coffee. There was a silence, so I looked up at dad, who was staring at me intently. "No." I said, shaking my head. "No way."

"Someone has to look after him. Stop him, if necessary." Dad said, not about to change his mind about it. To be fair, I was the best option here, but I really didn't want to. Stiles seemed okay, heck, even Lydia seemed to have more depth to her personality than she pretended to have. But something about Scott McCall threw me off. I didn't like him much.

"They don't even trust me dad." I said. "No way he's going to trust me when he goes all wolf." Dad sighed, then leaned towards me with a stern look on his face.

"Then get him to trust you. Find information, pretend to have a crush on him. If he has no control, he might just kill someone. So get to him, one way or the other. And do it before the moon rises this Saturday." his expression softened as he finished speaking, and he leaned back in his chair. "You always wanted a job of your own, this may be my final chance to give it to you."

I appreciated dad letting me have my own job, and I understand why he gave it to me. But one part of what he'd said got me thinking. Because there was really only one way now to get through to Scott before Saturday.

"Get to him, one way or the other."

"the other"

 **A/N: I hope that you all liked that chapter! I'll try to post once a week, every Saturday, but since I won't have much time tomorrow I uploaded this one early. :) I have the next few chapters almost ready, I still need to edit them and check the grammar and spelling, but for the next couple of weeks you can be sure of weekly uploads!**

 **Thank you for reading and (hopefully) 'till next week!**

 **~Lilly**


	3. Chapter three

**Chapter three: Filling the gaps (surprisingly quickly)**

It didn't take as long as I excepted for my phone to ring. Only when I answered the call, it wasn't from who I thought it would be.

"Hello?" I asked, mentally crossing my fingers.

" _Lorraine? That's you right? Got this number from the principal."_ Lydia's voice sounded from the other end of the line. I let out a sigh as I let myself fall onto my bed.

"Yes, it's me. Why are you calling?" I asked, looking up at the white ceiling. I should paint that some day. Green, maybe black. Or both.

" _I'm throwing a party Friday night, thought it'd be a good time to catch up."_

"Look Lydia, I-"

" _Perfect."_ Lydia said, not even letting me finish my sentence. " _It starts at eight, my place, I'll send you the address. See you there!"_ I let out a scoff as she hung up. If this was the way that chick was trying to become friends with me (again, I suppose), she clearly hadn't been that close me. Or else she'd known that I didn't like being ordered around.

I sat up straight and started taking off my black boots when my phone rang again. With a frown I picked it up.

"Hello?" I asked once again, for a second thinking that it might be Lydia again.

" _Hey Lorraine… so I was wondering, you know since you gave me your number, and told me to call if there was something, not, not that there is something, no, not at all I was just wondering if… you'd want to… hang out?"_ An almost victorious smile grew on my face.

"Yeah, sounds good." I said, wincing when my stomach grumbled ferociously. Stiles let out a nervous laugh.

" _You want me to order a pizza?"_ he asked. Another rumble came from my stomach, making him chuckle.

"Well there's your answer." I said, pushing myself off the bed to sit up straight. "Text me the address, be there in a mo." With that I hung up the phone and jumped off the bed. Footsteps sounded from the hallway, probably dad noticing the sudden activity in my room. As I was putting my black leather jacket on, there came a knock from the door followed by dad opening it.

"You going somewhere?"

"Stiles, Scott's best friend, asked me to come over." I said, zipping up the jacket and turning towards dad. "Apparently he was my friend before, so with him I'll get Scott to trust me." Contrary to my expectations, dad didn't seemed pleased at all. Instead, the blood seemed to drain away from his face. And that did not happen often.

"Stiles Stilinski?" he asked, his expression stoic.

"What about him?" I asked, a small frown forming on my face. What could be so concerning about Stiles? I'm pretty sure the guy would trip over a butterfly. Dad shook his head, looking down at the floor.

"Lora, we need to talk." he said. I let out a small groan.

"I promised Stiles I'd get there as soon as I could, can it wait?" I asked, already walking to the door. A hand grabbed my arm, stopping me. Dad forced me to turn around and face him.

"Your mother wasn't the only one in the car during accident." I froze at his words, from what he'd always told me mom had been alone. He loosened his grip on my arm and allowed me to step back before continuing. "You were there too." It was like I ran into a brick wall. Me? There? I had no memory whatsoever of being there. Dad saw the confusion and let out a sigh. He then directed me to my bed where we both sat down.

"You were in the back seat. Your mother died on impact, but you survived. The crash damaged your brain, you were out for a while. When you woke up, you couldn't remember the past year or so. You could only remember trivial things, but your brain seemed to compensate the missing memory by just making assumptions."

"When was this?" I asked, frowning at him.

"The day we left Beacon Hills. You two were on your way to pick me up from work, just out of town." he said, confusing me even more.

"What kind of work? Was it a job?"

"I was security guard at an institution, but that doesn't matter. I told you this so that you understand what's going on if people seem to know you. Lydia, Stiles, Isaac. They were nice kids, you know. Go easy on them." he said, patting my back as a sign he was done. I had even more questions (like who the hell this Isaac kid was), but I'd left Stiles waiting long enough. After saying goodbye to my dad I took the car and drove to his house, making a mental note to check my list of friends for Isaac.

~o~

Stiles' house wasn't huge, but not small either. Just a simple two story home with a driveway for the car. I parked my car on the side of the road and walked over to the front door. The ringing sound of the doorbell made me wince at its volume. However, Stiles didn't seem bothered by it when he opened the door.

"Hey, Lorraine." he said, giving me a small smile. He kept leaning against the door, no sign he was about to leave me in. I tilted my head and looked at him, waiting for him to realise. After a while his face went blank and his eyes widened. "Oh! Right! Yes, yes, come in. Jus-" he opened the door further and stepped aside to let me in.

"Thanks." I said, amused by his awkwardness. Once inside I took off my jacket, which Stiles took from me to hang up. While he was gone I took a look around. The house seemed simple enough, with some clutter here and there. The floor looked like no one had hoovered there in days.

"So." Stiles' voice came from my left. My head shot up to see him walking towards me. "Pizza is on it's way, should be here in about…" the loud ringing was back again, making me wince. Stiles muttered an apology and walked to the door, taking two pizza boxes from the deliverer. He turned around, eyes scanning the room.

"Ehh…. here." he said, handing them to me before turning back to the deliverer. He took his wallet out of his pocket and paid him, shouting a thanks before shutting the door. My stomach let out yet another growl at the smell of the pizzas in my arms, making me wince. Stiles and I stood there for a moment, staring at whatever but each other.

"I seem to be still holding the pizzas." I said. "My stomach suggests we do something else with them."

"Yes, right." he said, taking the pizzas and walking ahead of me towards the kitchen. Like the rest of the house I'd seen so far, it was simple. A standard kitchen with a dinner table and some chairs. Said dinner table being full of news articles and police reports.

"Yeah… that's my dad's." Stiles said, rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet. "We could also eat upstairs?" he suggested. We walked upstairs and passed a couple of doors before he stopped in front of his room. And then he didn't move for about five seconds.

"Stiles?" I asked, a frown forming on my face.

"Sorry, wait here." he said, pushing the pizzas into my arms yet again and entering his room. The door was shut right in front of me, noises of things being shoved aside coming from the other side of it. After a minute or so the door swung open. I did my best to supress a grin.

"Now you done?" I asked. He nodded and let me enter. His room was typical, but had it's own little twist that seemed to suit Stiles. My grin widened at the posters on the wall. "All Time Low, huh?" I asked, setting down the pizzas on the desk. "Nice choice. You should try out Fall Out Boy while you're at it." I turned around to see him grinning at me. Funny, I think this was the first time he'd actually seemed confident. I raised my eyebrows at him, as if to ask: What?

"You're into that kind of music now. Doesn't surprise me."

"It's not really an uncommon thing, you know." I said, turning around to open the first pizza box. Pepperoni, bacon, chicken, and mushrooms. My favourite.

"Hope you still like that, because the other one is all mine." he said, taking his own box. I stuck out my tongue at him.

"In fact I do like this. What do you have, then?" I said, taking a slice and sitting down on his desk chair. He grinned at me.

"Hawaii."

I made a gagging sound, pretending to throw up, which only made him laugh.

"Please tell me that you aren't going to eat that."

"You always say that!" he complained, taking a bite.

"It's fruit!" I exclaimed. "On a pizza! That, my good sir, isn't natural." I took another bite of my pizza.

"Yeah, because that much meat and salt is." Stiles said, being a sarcastic little bitch. I rolled my eyes at him, though it didn't end up as convincing as I hoped it would. Maybe it was because I was laughing.

We sat there eating for a while, and I knew what had to happen next. I had to tell him.

And tell him I did.

His eyes got a bit watery near the end, though he pretended that they weren't. I expected him to become uncomfortable. To say he was sorry, or that it must've been horrible. The usual stuff which didn't really apply to me because, well, I didn't even remember. I did remember my mother, of course, but I didn't remember losing her. Just not having her in my life. I was still surprised when he didn't say any of those thing I'd expected him to say.

Instead, he looked at me and… understood. I felt my heart sink to my stomach as I realised, because there was really one way that he could understand.

"What happened?" I asked. To my surprise, I felt a lump forming in my throat. Maybe it was part of my memory trying to tell me that this guy in front of me was my friend, and I had cared for him. Maybe it was just something all children who had this in common felt when they met each other. Maybe I was being a little bitch about it.

"Frontotemporal dementia." Stiles said, his eyes becoming watery yet again. "Parts of the brain shrink, causing dementia and eventually-" he didn't finish his sentence, but he didn't need to. I didn't know what to say. Simply because one: I didn't want to tell him that "I was sorry for him" and all that stuff, and two: I just wasn't a great conversationalist when it comes to emotions. So instead, I asked him a question.

"When?"

"About three months after you left."

"You and your father?"

"Coping."

"Change of subject?"

"God, please."

We ended up chatting about basically anything but that or the supernatural, but we both knew that the latter is what the conversation would eventually lead up to. And it did.

"So, you're a protector?" Stiles asked.

"No shit sherlock." I said, finishing my last slice. Too bad, that pizza tasted amazing. Stiles shifted, somewhat uncomfortably. I closed the pizza box and turned towards him. "Scott is going to be fine. He just needs some help."

"And you can give him help?" Stiles asked, standing up from his bed and walking to his computer. "Because I've been doing research and there's all this stuff that can trigger a shift and-"

"And I know how to help." I said, standing up and walking towards him. There were four tabs opened on his browser, all sites with information on werewolves and the supernatural. I had to admit, he'd done some good research.

"Can I try something?" he asked, opening a new tab.

"Depends on what it is." I said, turning around to sit on the desk. He typed something into the search bar and logged into a site. From what I'd gathered, it was a gaming site. I let out a groan.

"Stiles, I am not helping you defeat pixels."

"Yes you are. The developers of this game have done a shit load of research, and from what I know, it's pretty damn accurate." he said, dragging the desk chair over and positioning himself on it, in front of the computer. "I need to know whether you actually are who you say to be." I tilted my head at him, frowning.

"You don't trust me." He let out a sigh.

"I trust you, okay? Scott doesn't. Which is rare, because Scott trusts everyone." he explained, using wild hand gestures at first but then stopping. "Besides, maybe you're not as good as you claim to be." I clenched my jaw and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Is that a fucking challenge, Stillinski?" He grinned at me and I let out a scoff as I realised I'd done exactly what he'd expected me to do. "Fine." I said, letting myself fall off the desk and walked to stand next to him. "Let's do this shit."

Contrary to my expectations, the game was so much fun. After a while, we'd developed a tactic. Stiles did the controls, shouted out the name of a monster whenever one appeared (even though I was sitting right next to him) and I'd say what to use against it. The team we were on was bad, like disastrous bad, but there was one round…

"Oh God, that's- that's a wendigo." Stiles said, dodging it's attacks. "What do we do, what do we do?" he asked.

"Shoot it!" I yelled, taking over the controls and running towards it.

"With what?" Stiles yelled, slapping my fingers away and taking the controls back.

"Heaviest gun, fire until dead. Before he eats you." I said. Stiles followed my instructions and we managed to kill it without getting too much damage done to ourselves.

By killing it we'd earned access to the boss fight of that round. We ended up in a field with gray grass and a gray sky, with a stonehenge-like structure in the middle of it.

"Where is it?" Stiles asked, trying to look around. Then, in the middle of the field, a reaper appeared.

"Okay, reaper." Stiles said, walking around it. He turned towards me when I didn't say anything. "Lora? What do we do?" I frowned and shook my head.

"Don't know. Reapers don't exist." Stiles' eyes widened and he looked back at the screen, making a series of confused (and frustrated) noises.

"Well I don't know how to beat it." he said, throwing his hands up in his frustration. "There are no reapers? Really? Something like it? Anything?" he asked, desperate. I wanted to tell him not to stress out, it was just a game after all. But, the thing was… I wanted to win this just as badly as he did, stupid as it was.

"Well, there are the Ravens." I said, shuddering involuntarily at the memory. I felt the claws pierce my back all over again, but it was like something itching: you feel it when you start thinking about it. At least that's what I figured.

"Good." Stiles said, clapping his hands. "How can you kill a Raven?"

"You can't." I said, shaking my head slightly. "You can't kill death." There came the confused noises again. I tried my best to remember something, anything how to defeat a Raven whilst ignoring the pain from my memory. Meanwhile Stiles did his best not to get us killed.

"Okay, what if we don't need to kill him, we just need to maim it?" Stiles said, dodging another attack.

"What's the point?" I snapped. "The Raven always gets you in the end, just like death." I slumped back into my chair.

So far, I'd done my best to convince myself that there was no point fretting over something that I couldn't avoid, hell, I might've convinced some of you I didn't care. Truth be told, I wasn't scared. I cared, oh yes I did, I dreaded it. But I'm not scared of dying. Doing what I do, that'd be pointless. No, because in that moment, the thing I'd realised from the very start of this, but that I'd pushed away since the second after, hit me. I'm not scared of death, I'm scared of what I would leave behind. Dad would be a mess. Stiles would be upset, I guess. Lydia… I don't even know. But dad, Jason, the other protectors… I didn't want them to be sad, to get hurt. I didn't-

"Lora?"

I wanted to gasp for air, but instead I coughed. In the end I was a mess, tears in my eyes as I tried to breath.

"You blacked out." I looked to my left, where Stiles sat, staring at me in concern.?

"As I said, you blacked out." Stiles said. I closed my mouth, which had been hanging open.. Still a bit dazed, I looked around. I was still in his room, only the computer screen was now black.

"Did we win?" I asked, making Stiles laugh.

"Yes, of course, I saw you suddenly stare ahead of you without responding to anything and proceeded to play the game." He said, shaking his head at me. I repositioned myself on the computer chair, and it was silent for a while.

"Do you… need anything?" Stiles asked. I shook my head. I wanted to pretend like it hadn't happened, me fainting. To just continue playing some stupid game.

"I think I'm going to head home." I said instead, taking out my car keys of my pocket. Stiles' eyes widened and he shook his head.

"No, no way Hield, you are not driving home just after blacking out, no way." He said, snatching the keys out of my hands. I let out a "hey!" In protest, but to no avail, he'd stuffed the keys in his pockets. Oh, I wasn't having any of that. Doing the opposite of what he'd expected, I leaned in towards him, my face inches away from his.

"I'll be fine." I whispered, grabbing the keys from his pocket before pulling away. Judging by his face, he was more than a little uncomfortable. Good. "Thanks for the pizza. Oh, and make sure you and Scott keep your fifth hour free tomorrow."

"Wh- bu- we have chemistry the fifth hour." He protested, though it came out weak, like a whisper.

"Not anymore you don't. I'll talk to the teacher." I said, walking to the door. I heard Stiles scoff behind me as he followed me into the hallway.

"You can't just talk with mister Harris, he'll slaughter you!" He said as we walked down the stairs. I just smirked at him.

"You can't. I can. See you tomorrow, Stillinski." I said, opening their front door and walking towards my car.

"Yeah, tomorrow Hield." He said, watching me open my car. Or at least attempt to, because when I wanted to, my car key wasn't on my keychain any more. I'm not sure how I'd missed that, but then again it was the only key missing. Stiles let out a laugh and I heard the door being shut. I turned around and saw him walking towards me, a glint of light in his hand.

"You asshole!" I said, though I couldn't help but let out a laugh. Didn't like to admit it, but I was impressed by Stiles. Speaking of which, he now slipped past me and quickly got into the driver's seat before I could interfere. I let out a huff. He'd won. This time. In an act of protest, I didn't talk the entire ride home, which seemed to amuse Stiles more than anything else. Oh little did he realise…

We stopped at my house and he gave me the key back, grinning smugly at me. He really hadn't thought this through, had he?

"Well then, thanks I guess." I said, attaching the key to my keyring. "Have a nice ride home, and don't forget: fifth hour!" I turned on my heel and started walking to the front door. Almost made my way to it , that was how long it took him to realise. An irritated groan echoed through the street, followed by the sound of someone smacking himself in the face.

"I would give you a ride home," I said, searching for the right keys to open the front door. "But like you said, no way I'm driving right?"

Stiles bowed his head a mumbled something, a few curse words. I let out a laugh. "Tell you what, I'll get you a cab, as a thanks for the pizza." And with that, I opened the door and entered my house.

Once in the living room I messaged dad's chauffeur, Joey. Would take him around three minutes to get here. On the coffee table was a note from dad. _Working late, see you tomorrow. D._ I kicked off my boots before walking upstairs. Get some homework done and then plan for tomorrow. Yeah, that sounded good.

 **A/N: So, another chapter! I think that I'm just going to say that there'll be a new chapter each Friday/Saturday, because this is already the second time I'm doing it on a Friday so why not.**

 **Also, I don't know if any of you even noticed, but I've finally found the actress that resembles Lorraine like I wanted her to: Olivia Holt! I also changed to cover to an edit I made of Lorraine and Stiles. It's not the best, but I hope you like it!** **I know that this chapter was kind of short, I try to make them a minimum of 4k each, but this is around 3.5K. I hope you enjoyed it anyway :)**

 **I can now also confirm that:** **The story will follow the show from chapter eight onwards. Until then it'll be like it is now: the events are a bit scrambled, with original chapters inbetween. I do plan on keeping original scenes and chapters in the story.**

 **Also: I just noticed that the scene breaks I've been disappeared when I put them into docs, so I'll fix that when I have time for it.**

 **Thank you all for reading, and I'll see you next week with a new chapter!**

 **~Lilly**


	4. Chapter four

Chapter four: That'll teach him.

It was the third hour, and I was counting down the minutes until the fourth. Especially since I was doing a physics test that was really fucking difficult. I figured that I could at least try to make dad proud of me. For something else than trapping a crazed werewolf during the full moon.

It was only a small test, just to see at what level I was at. I finished after only ten minutes, and got my grade at the end of the lesson, when the teacher put my paper on my desk. There was a big D- written on the paper in red. I let out a sigh and slumped into my chair.

"What did you get?" Stiles asked. He was sitting next to me, leaning over to my table. I tried to pull away the paper but the little fucker snatched it away from me. "Damn. That blows." he said, giving it back. I gave him a glare and turned away from him, facing my other neighbour instead. Lydia.

"If you want, I can help." she offered. "I won't be moved to AP physics until the end of the term, so I have enough time." Part of me was surprised at the fact that Lydia would be in AP physics, but most of me wasn't. I knew there was more to this girl. And I didn't want to be her friend (though she did act more genuine around me now), but I could really use the extra help if I was going to pass this class. So I agreed and went back to counting down to the next hour as I stared at my test.

~o~

We gathered on the lacrosse field, but after Scott and Stiles arrived I led them to an empty gym hall. It was hardly ever used, since Coach prefered to teach class outside (rain or no rain). We stood in the middle of the hall, Stiles and I next to each other with Scott a few metres opposite of us. Scott looked at me in confusion, as we weren't doing anything.

"So what are we g-" I cut him off by throwing a tennis ball at him, which he caught without thinking about it.

"Good reflexes." I said, giving him a nod of approval. "So, what are you having trouble with?"

"I- I can't control my shift." He said, looking at the tennis ball, unsure what to do with it so just keeping it in his hand. "Can you help?" I frowned at him.

"Of course I can, that's what I've been telling you." I said before tapping the side of my head with my finger. "So what, you can't call up your shift or you can't keep it down?"

"Can't keep it down." Stiles answered for him. I nodded, understanding. That's what most new beta's tended to have problems with.

"There's several ways. One is using a mantra." I said, eyeing him. "Though I doubt that'll work for you…" I scratched the back of my neck in thought. "Okay, how about finding an anchor?"

"Wait, like a mental one, or…" Scott asked, frowning at me. I let out a sigh and rolled my eyes.

"No Scott, the one that's on a ship. Of course a mental anchor, why would you even want an actual anchor?" Next to me Stiles bit his lip, trying to keep himself from laughing. I ignored him and continued my explanation. "Your anchor can be anything. A goal, a pet, a person. Anything or anyone that can keep you calm as well as make you agitated." I saw a shift in his eyes, they went from alert to soft, and I knew he was thinking about that Allison girl. Still not sure why, but I couldn't help but smile. "Found one?"

"Yeah." he said, smiling almost dreamily. I clapped in my hands.

"Great! Let's test it. Stiles, tie him up." I said, pointing at a duffel bag in the storage. Stiles frowned at me, but walked to the bag and took out some ropes. He looked at me in confusion, then shrugged and went to work. Work being tying up Scott so he couldn't move. Meanwhile I took out an old lacrosse stick and some balls, together with one of those machines that spits out tennis you call them.

I presented the items with a wide grin on my face. Stiles smiled wickedly at me, whilst Scott just let out a sigh, shifting uncomfortably in his ropes.

It had been a bit bumpy in the beginning, Scott was trying to contain his anger, but he had trouble focusing because of it.

"Hold on Scott, think about Allison!" I yelled as Stiles threw another well aimed ball at him. He was getting better at aiming with every throw. Which didn't necessarily help Scott, but was good fun to watch. "For God's sake McCall!" I yelled as his eyes started glowing once again. "Think of her naked for all I care, just focus!"

That seemed to do the trick. His eyes stopped shining and his breathing… well it increased in pace, but not because of his anger this time.

I nodded in approval and looked at the clock on the wall. We still had twenty minutes left. The tennis machine let out a series of beeps, indicating that it was out of munition. Stiles was running out of lacrosse balls to throw as well.

"Let's take a break." I said, turning the machine off. Scott let out a breath of relief, making me smirk. "Don't think you're getting away that easily McCall, just five minutes, then we will be back in the game."

Stiles and I gathered all the balls, leaving Scott tied up whilst doing so.

"How did you manage to get us out of chemistry?" Stiles asked, picking up another lacrosse ball. I shrugged.

"I have my contacts."

"As long as those contacts aren't going to get us killed, fine by me."

"Guys?" Scott asked. "Are you going to untie me any time soon?"

I picked up the last tennis ball and let out a sigh, ignoring his question as I put them back in the machine. Scott was good to go on his physical anger, but now the tricky part came. Emotional, psychological anger. Much more dangerous, and, if not controlled, much more deadly.

"Why would I untie you, McCall?" I asked, a sharper edge to my voice. "I mean, it would be so much easier to just kill you. Would save me an awful lot of trouble, you know." I put away the tennis machine into the storage. "Why am I even wasting my time on you? You're just a pathetic little boy. Can't even handle being a werewolf when it's not the full moon." There was a growl from the other side of the gym.

"Lorraine.." Stiles said, his voice shaky. But I wasn't there just yet, so I let out a scoff, whilst pushing the machine further, with some trouble. What was wrong with that thing?

"Can't see why Allison would even want to date you, worthless piece of shit you are. Is there even something you can do? I mean, you're not smart, you're not hot, I bet you were shit at lacrosse before you got the bite."

"Lorraine!" Stiles was yelling now.

"But you can't even handle that, can you?" I asked, turning around to face Scott, who was inches away from me, eyes glowing, bared teeth, trying to scratch my face off with those hideous claws. But not being able to come any closer. I smirked at him.

"We'll work on that." I said, pushing a cloth laced with wolfsbane against his face. He froze in shock. When I pulled it off, he was back to normal. "It shouldn't be that easy to get to you Scott. You need to be stronger than that." He looked at me with wide eyes.

"Mountain ash." I said, pointing at the line I'd made earlier, just in front of him. "Keeps out the supernatural." The clock struck twelve, startling Scott. "Let's clean this up, shall we? Only thirteen minutes left."

~o~

I swung my backpack over my shoulder as I left the classroom. It was lunch break, at last, with a free period after. Freedom at last. At least that's what I thought, until I saw Lydia walking up to me.

"Hey Lorraine, so I thought you might like to be introduced to a few people around here. Only the important ones, trust me." she said, smiling at me. I shook my head at her,, and she lost the preppy attitude.

"Come on, please. Let me do something nice for you, okay?" she asked. A pang of guilt came out of nowhere, so I nodded reluctantly, making her squeal in delight.

"Awesome! Follow me." she said. And there went my lunch break.

She continued to introduce me to all her friends. At least that's what she called them, it seemed more like a mutual feeling of respect. Or a one-sided feeling of fear. Lydia could be pretty intimidating after all. I ended up having a pleasant conversation with Danny, whilst all the other lacrosse players were drooling all over Lydia. Oh, and I was right: He's gay. And also very nice. By the time Lydia got bored with all the attention, lunch break was over and she had to get back to class. I was left alone in the library, going through last year's yearbook, looking someone up. He should be here somewhere…

I found his picture. Now I had to find him. That was never going to work. I suppose that I'd just have to keep an eye out for him. With a sigh, I shut off my computer and stood up. Oh you've got to be kidding me. He was sitting there the entire time? Great.

I walked over to the table he was sitting at, alone, and sat down opposite of him.

"Ehm, hey, Isaac?" I asked. He slowly lowered his book he was reading, staring at me with wide eyes. "That's you, right?"

He nodded, putting down his book completely. He was completely tense.

"I'm Lorraine." I said, smiling softly at him. "I lived here a couple of years ago. Dad told me we were friends. I just… wanted to say hi." I said, growing ever more uncomfortable as he didn't seem to really react. He looked frozen. "Well. I guess that's it." I said, standing up again. This had been a huge mistake. He probably forgot about me.

"I knew you were back." he then said. I frowned and sat back down.

"Why didn't you come talk to me?" I asked.

"Thought you'd forgotten about me." he said, shrugging. "Would you… like to have lunch tomorrow?" I smiled at the blush that formed on his cheeks.

"I'd love to."

 **A/N: So I know that this chapter was really short, but I just wanted to put it on here to show you a bit more about how Lorraine will be training Scott. Do not worry: I will make sure to upload the next chapter early, I'm trying to make it Wednesday.**

 **So Lorraine met Isaac! I really like his character, and he will make a few more appearances throughout this story. I wont say when, but he definitely will.**

 **For the next chapter we have a party and a certain grumpy werewolf to look forward to ;)**

 **See you then!**


	5. Chapter five

Chapter five: Party animal

It was high time I had a normal day, or at least one with no trouble, and that Friday seemed to be that day. Lunch with Isaac had been delightful. Slowly but surely he'd started talking more and more, and we ended up laughing and mocking the jocks from the lacrosse team. (After making sure they most definitely couldn't hear us.)

So yes, a normal day at last. That was, until the sun set, and the moon rose. It being the night before the full moon, I was less than surprised when someone called me. Said someone being Stiles.

"What did he do?" I asked, putting my boots back on. It was going to be one of those nights again. Of course it was. No mental break day for Lorraine.

" _Lorraine, eh- it's Stiles. No, I mean I'm Stiles, not that- it's Scott."_ a smirk grew on my face as he spoke. Called it. Well, not called it. It called me. Or he ca- you know what? Never mind. " _I tried to stop him, from going to the party. Because- well, eh- he'll be with Allison and they're kind of..."_

"Wait, hold on." I said, freezing at that bit of information. "The party? As in Lydia's party?"

" _Yeah."_ I let out a groan. It was definitely going to be one of those nights again. New werewolf in the middle of a high school party? Anything better than dull I guess. I pushed the phone between my ear and my shoulder, stuffing equipment in my backpack whilst continuing the conversation.

"Okay then. I'd rather do this on my own, but since he doesn't trust me enough just yet and you're his best friend you'll have to come with me." I said, zipping up the bag.

" _To- to the party? Lydia's party? At, at her house?"_ Stiles said, stumbling over his own words once again.

"No. To the resurrection of Jesus at the graveyard." I said, rolling my eyes. "Yes to the party! I'll come pick you up in two minutes." I said, slamming the door to my room shut and running downstairs whilst hanging up the phone. Dad came into the hallway as I put on my black leather jacket. We didn't need to talk, I just nodded at him and he went down to the basement, preparing for the worst in case I needed backup. I took the car keys from the drawer before leaving the house and driving to Stiles' place.

I had been waiting for at least five minutes before Stiles came out, running to the car. I twisted the keys and the engine started revving as soon as he sat down.

"What the hell took you so long?" I asked, pushing my foot down on the gas pedal.

"I was wearing pyjamas." he said, putting his seatbelt on. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye: he was wearing black jeans, red shirt and grey jacket. I, on the other hand, was still wearing the clothes I'd worn to school. Same black jeans and same white Panic! at the disco shirt. The only thing that was different was that I had the jacket on. Well, it wasn't like I was going to the party to look pretty anyway. We spent a minute or two in silence, and I couldn't help but notice him glancing at me every few seconds or so.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "Apart from the whole supernatural things please." I added. Over the years dad and I had dealt with tons of confused people whose best friends turned supernatural. It was always the same story.

"So you don't remember me, like, at all? Nothing?" he asked. I tried my hardest not to wince. He was hurt. Really, truly hurt. And for some reason, that hurt me. Worse than the hurt when I met Lydia on my first day at school.

"I'm sorry, but still nothing." I said. I didn't want to talk about it anymore, so I asked him what exactly Scott had done.

"After what you've told so far and what happened in the woods, I did some research, and I, I wanted to show Scott but he-" Stiles spoke rapidly, almost as if the sentence were just one long word.

"-Stiles." I cut in, turning us around the corner and into Lydia's street. "Calm down, I know that you're worried but you need to be clear. I need to know what he did before he left."

"Yeah, yeah sorry. Had too much adderall." he said, waving it off before looking up at the road ahead. "He almost punched me." he said, a bit dazed. It was understandable, your best friend almost hitting you out of nowhere was worrying to say the least. He shook his head and then turned it towards me. "But this party is only for invited. Scott can only go because Allison can. How will we get in?" A smirk grew on my face, happy that this was going to be easy for once. Or so I thought.

"Well... Lydia asked me to come." I said, turning my head towards him. "You can be my plus one!" I said, patting him on the shoulder and parking the car next to the road. It wasn't hard to pinpoint where the party was: drunk teenagers, music and lights all came from the same huge house. Stiles and I walked there together, both keeping an eye out for Scott, but he wasn't outside.

"So what are you going to do?" Stiles asked, stopping by the front door. My hand went into my bag and took out a handkerchief, which I showed to Stiles.

"Okay, so what's that, does it have like magical powers or was it made during a full moon?" he asked, taking it in his hands. I let out a chuckle at his assumptions.

"It's a handkerchief, but I laced it with wolfsbane." I was a little surprised to see him nodding, as if he understood what that meant. Must've done some real intensive research. "Don't worry, it's not highly concentrated and will only make him black out." I said, glad to see the slightly worried expression leave his face. But there were more important things to do than worry. Making sure that Scott doesn't kill Allison, for instance.

We entered the party through the front door. Drunk teenagers making out whilst half dancing to the music were everywhere. In front of the pool were Scott and Allison, dancing with each other in the middle of the crowd. I slapped Stiles on his shoulder and pointed at them. He nodded and we started walking towards them. We only got halfway before Scott turned away from Allison and ran past us, coughing and sweating. Fuck.

"Explain it to her, I'll stop him." I said to Stiles before running after Scott. By the time I'd gotten to the front door, Scot was only a few metres ahead of me. I sprinted towards him and grabbed for the hanky, only to find nothing there. Shit, I must've forgotten to take it back from Stiles. Over to plan B. I grabbed his wrist tightly.

"Scott, stop." I said, my voice shaking a bit, surprising me a little. Not that I had any more time to think about it.

Scott turned around, he was sweating and panting, though I doubted it was from the running. He stared at me and then tried to pull his hand loose. "Scott, don't." I said. "Think about Allison. Remember what I taught you."

"Let me go." he said, his voice weak. Behind us Stiles came running out of the house, the hanky in his hand.

"Lorraine!" he shouted, running towards us. I looked back for only a moment, and the next thing I knew was that Scott's fist slammed against my shoulder. I let out a cry of pain and Scott pulled himself loose and ran to his car. "Lorraine, you okay?" Stiles asked, placing a hand on my other shoulder. I looked at him with wide eyes. What was he doing?

"Go after him!" I yelled, pointing at Scott.

Stiles' eyes widened in realisation, and he ran after Scott, who got into his car and drove away before Stiles could reach him.

I let out a groan in frustration. One job, Lorraine, you had one job. Now Scott was going off to do God knows, and he probably won't know either because he will go total werewolf. Stiles ran back to me, about to say something when Alisson ran out of the door, calling for Scott. Seeing he wasn't there anymore, she walked towards us.

"What happened, where's Scott?" she asked, looking rather distressed. Stiles and I shared a look, not sure what to tell her. At least I wasn't sure. Stiles, on the other hand, seemed to find it much easier to find an excuse.

"He was having an asthma attack, probably forgot his inhaler at home." he explained, acting like it was no big deal. "He didn't mean to scare you." Alisson relaxed a bit, but was still tensed, her eyes still a bit wide.

"How about we give you a ride home." I offered, more for her safety than anything. Scott might come back for her and who knows what he would do. Stiles seemed a bit surprised at my offer, but went with it anyway. He nodded in agreement.

Just over Allison's shoulder I could see a guy, probably in his twenties, looking at us. He was tall, black hair and stubble, and gave off an overall tense look. Not as in distressed, just… tense. His gaze was almost a glare, which softened a bit when he saw that I was looking at him. He seemed surprised, then nodded his head to his left, a gesture for me to come over. At this point, both Stiles and Allison were staring at me.

"What are you looking at?" Stiles asked, looking back at where Derek was standing just a moment ago. There was nobody there.

"Oh, nothing." I said, shrugging it off. As luck would have it, my phone made a ping noise. I took it out and stared at the screen. It was just a message from a stupid game I hadn't played in weeks, but it came at a convenient time. With a roll of my eyes I looked up from the screen, back at Allison and Stiles. "Dad's here to pick me up. Overprotective bastard." I mumbled, stuffing the phone back into my pocket. "You two go, he says he's just around the corner." And with that, I walked off.

Oh this was just brilliant. New beta, almost dying, probably going to die and a mysterious dude wanting to talk to me to top it all off. Hectic? Of course. Was I complaining? Hell no. Okay, maybe about the dying part. I said goodbye to Stiles and Allison and walked over to where the mysterious dude had walked towards. After walking a few metres I was pulled aside.

"Lorraine, Lorraine Hield?" he asked, standing way too close to me for my likings. Taking a step back, I tried to read him. Behind a mask of stoicism, there was a glint of hope in his eyes. How interesting.

"Who wants to know?" I asked, trying to see any other emotion. He was good at hiding them, I'll give him that. But there was definitely something there.

"Derek Hale."

"And what do you want from me, Derek Hale?" I asked, folding my arms over each other. A small smirk grew on his face.

"Do what you were raised to do. Teach Scott, make sure he doesn't kill anyone. Or get himself killed." he said, stepping closer to me once more. Was this supposed to intimidate me? "Because if you don't, I'll kill him myself." I rolled my eyes with a huff.

"Is that all?" I asked, not seeing the point of having this conversation.

"Ask your father about me. He knows more than he lets on." he said, and with that, he turned around and started walking away.

"Least you can do is give me a ride home!" I yelled at him, throwing my hands up in the air.

Now, the last thing I'd expected was for him to turn around and actually give me a ride home. Funny how things turn out to be sometimes. Because next thing I knew, Derek was driving me home. And once again I was being interrogated. How I knew Scott, when I came back to Beacon Hills, who I came with. Of course I didn't properly answer any of the questions, much to Derek's annoyance. In fact, he got so annoyed he just gave up after about four questions.

After a minute of silence, I spoke up.

"I am." I said, making him look at me. "Teaching Scott. He's a fast learner. Give me a month, he'll be ready by then." Derek nodded at that, silently approving it. "I just have one question for you: who is the alpha that bit Scott?"

"I don't know." Derek said, gritting his teeth. "But it's strong. It can shift into full wolf shape at will." I bit my inner lip hearing that, thinking. Any werewolf that could go in a full shift by will was very powerful, and not to mention: very dangerous. We turned around a corner, into my street.

"Thanks for the ride." I said, getting out of the car once we got to my house and walking towards it. "You know what?" I said, turning around. "As an act of gratitude, I won't mention the fact that's it's very creepy for you to know the way to my house by heart." I said, curtseying before walking back to my house. I wasn't sure if the small smirk on his face that I saw from the corner of my eye was real or just my imagination.

But I was far from done that night.

Somewhere out there, Scott was running around town, probably shifted into werewolf-mode. But where would he go? I took out my keys and opened the door to our house, heading directly for the basement.

"Scott's gone, he's gone full shift." I yelled as soon as I opened the door. I heard a zipper closing followed by footsteps, after which dad appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

"Where could he have gone?" he asked, looking up at me. I couldn't help but feel guilty: it was my fault that he got away after all.

"Do you happen to know a Derek Hale?" I asked, changing the subject. "He knows Scott, so Scott might know him."

"Derek Hale?" he asked, running upstairs. "He's a werewolf. If Scott knows him, he might think that Derek is the one that bit him. We need to go now." he said handing me my backpack and heading for the door.

~o~

We drove all the way to the woods in silence, despite my attempts to ask dad more about this Derek Hale I'd just talked to. He just told me that the mission came first, and we would talk later.

Once we arrived, we made our way through the woods, first going in a straight line towards what dad said was what was left of the Hale house (there'd been a fire, apparently), but soon we heard the unmistakable whoosh of an arrow and Scott screaming out in pain. One look between me and dad was enough to know the plan. Hunters, probably Argents. We had to get there as fast as we could and remember them of our deal, and their code.

Scott had one arrow that'd run through his arm, sticking him to a tree. Opposite of him stood three hunters with crossbows. Dad looked at me, and I nodded. He could do this one. Dad might've thought that because of his experience. But I just wanted to hide the fact that I felt like I was dying. Well, I was going to anyway, but the pain running through my body was agonising at best, and I was afraid that that would show once I spoke up. So I stood back and watched as dad took the lead, standing ready with my gun.

"Argent!" dad called, stepping forward and walking towards the hunter standing in the middle. "Do I need to remind you of our deal? What harm has this boy done?" he asked, nodding at Scott. I felt an urge to groan as he said the word "boy". It was our code word for: "Get ready to get him out of here." So, as quietly as I could, I crept towards the tree Scott was stuck to, hiding in the shadows, ready to make a run. Even though I doubted if I could make a ten metre sprint in my condition. Once there, I was left to ponder about how the Argents were in town. Probably the best hunter family in the entire country.

"We are all too aware, Hield." the hunter said. "But this boy, as you call him, attacked an innocent man." he put another arrow on his bow as he said that.

"That bus driver? You truly think that one could do that? Come on Chris, I expected better from you. The damn kid can't even get an arrow out of his arm." dad said, shaking his head. "Let him go."

"And let him attack someone else?" the hunter, Chris, said. "No way." he raised his crossbow.

To my right, a shadow shifted. I slowly turned my head and saw Derek, who had a finger on his mouth, but then pulled it away as he saw that I'd spotted him. I frowned, that was a protector's code for "talk, distract them." I didn't know why, but I trusted him. I like to trust my instinct. So, I stood up, and walked towards the group of men, my gun raised.

"I wouldn't do that." I said, ignoring the pain that shot through my back as I walked closer. "Put the bow down, leave the boy alone, and leave." I hoped desperately that my hands weren't shaking as much as I thought they were.

Chris looked at the other two hunters, as if silently communicating with them.

"You're not a bad person, Chris." dad added, and I knew he was trying to hide his confusion about what I was doing.

Suddenly, it sounded like a branch snapped behind our backs. When we turned around, Scott was gone and the arrow lay on the ground, snapped in two.

"Well," I said, turning around with a smirk. "Glad we've got that behind us."

They didn't smile back.

~o~

We'd come to a compromise. One month, that's how long we had to teach "the werewolf" to control himself. If he attacked anyone during that time, we weren't allowed to interfere with the hunters killing him. It wasn't impossible to manage, it was just… difficult.

The negotiations had taken so long, that by the end of it we couldn't find Scott or Derek, and I was shivering like mad because it was so fucking cold. We ended up driving around the edge of the woods, trying to find him, but to no avail. When we got back home and I checked my phone after taking a very long and very warm shower, I saw that I'd gotten dozens of texts from Stiles.

" _Did you go after Scott?"_

" _Is he okay?"_

" _Are you okay?"_

" _Damnit Lora, text me back!"_

" _You know that I will impale you, right?"_

And so on, and so on. I would've been charmed by how much he cared about his best friend, but the fact that I still had no clue where Scott was stopped me from doing that. But he did deserve to know what happened, so I called him, letting myself fall onto my bed.

" _Lora? Thank God. Are you both okay?"_ Stiles said as soon as he picked up. (Which was only seconds after I called)

"I'm fine Stiles. And Scott… he should be. Problem is… I don't know where he is." I said, feeling reluctant to say it as I knew what would come next. A ramble of questions. And it did. I'm not even bothering tell all of them, there were just too many.

After letting him calm down a bit, I told him what had happened, adding the fact that Scott likely wouldn't die from just an arrow wound or hypothermia. I finished off with questioning him naming me Lora. He seemed to do that whenever he was high on emotion.

" _Sorry, it's what I cal- used to call you. Before, you know, but y-"_ he said, trying to make it sound like he was brushing it off but failing rather miserably.

"It's okay, I was just curious, that's all." I said, not wanting to make him feel uncomfortable. Okay, maybe I did want him to feel a little uncomfortable, it's funnier that way, but I didn't want to scare him away.

" _So… can I call you Lora?"_ he asked, actually surprising me. Now he was making me feel uncomfortable! Well, I guess that's karma for you. It was just that I was so used to the fact that only people I trusted with my life called me Lora, it felt a bit wrong for someone else to call me that. The only reason I let Deaton call me it was that he actually did save my life, so I was in no position to complain.

"Don't." I eventually said. "Just… don't."

Silence fell, with an occasional " _so"_ or " _ehm"_ from Stiles' side. After a way too long time, I spoke up, not necessarily breaking the tension, but pushing it down for a while.

"So, since wolfboy is still roaming the woods of Beacon Hills, want to come pick me up tomorrow morning and have ourselves a little werewolf hunt?"

" _Yeah, that's a good plan. Eh, what time do you want to…?"_

"I think around seven is fine by me, don't want anyone else finding him half naked on the side of the road." I said, picturing it for a moment and nearly laughing. That would be quite the situation.

" _Alright then, I'll see you tomorrow."_

"Good night, Stiles." I said, hanging up and putting my phone on the charger. I stared at the clock on my nightstand in silence. It was already past twelve, so I had to get up in less than six hours. But I needed to talk to dad about what information I'd gotten from Derek. That's how we ended up sitting by the kitchen table drinking hot coco at twelve thirty AM.

"Any other werewolves in town that you know of?" I asked dad, tapping on my mug with my nails. Dad shook his head.

"Besides Scott and Derek? No. Well, there is Derek's uncle, but he's been in a hospital for years now. He doesn't do much else than blink. If… even that." I nodded at the piece of information. Dad had told me about the Hale house fire, how everyone had died save the children who were at school and their uncle, who had been severely injured.

"So no leads on the alpha. It could be anyone. Great." I said, gritting my teeth. "What's next? A deadpool?"

Dad rolled his eyes at that, but I just stuck out my tongue at him. We decided to leave the alpha for what it was (for now at least) and move on to the more "argent" matter. Sorry but it was a pun waiting to happen. Yes I am just as disgusted with that joke as you are. Anyway.

"So, if I'm correct, the most feared hunter family is in town, looking for werewolves?" I asked dad, who nodded. "And we, one of the most respected protector families are protecting said werewolves?" I asked, letting out a groan when he nodded once again.

"If they keep their word, and they will, then we have one more month. Also, if Jason's right. There's only three Argents in town. Christopher, his wife Victoria, and their daughter, Allison." I froze at the mention of the girl's name.

"Does she know that they're hunters?" I asked. If she did, we were in big trouble.

"I don't think so, why?" dad said, frowning. I closed my eyes and sighed.

"I know her. She and Scott are dating. And I think that she's his anchor." The urge to groan was strong, but I restrained myself. Dad wiped his hands over his face, he did that when he was thinking.

"Then strongly advise him to stop dating her, and find a new anchor. She's going to find out eventually." he eventually said, letting his arms fall to his side. I raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

"That's it?" I asked. That was not going to work so it was downright stupid to even try. Allison was way out of Scott's (current) league, no way he was going to turn her down. But I couldn't exactly think of anything better, and by the looks of it, neither could dad. So I let out a reluctant sigh and let it slide. "If I just keep on training him like this, he could make it within a month. But not earlier."

"That case, you've got plans for Saturday night." he said, patting my shoulder and getting off his chair. "I'm going to do some translating, you should go get some sleep." I let out a small grumble in protest, even though I had no trouble with going to sleep as I was exhausted.

 **A/N: So there you go! Chapter five, a few days earlier than usual to make up for the shortness of last chapter.**

 **Also: Thank all of you who favourited/followed this story, it makes me very happy!**

 **Next chapter we've got some original parts and a bit of the series, with quite some Lorraine/Stiles friendship going on ;)**

 **Feel free to leave a review, and I'll see you in a few days!**

 **~Lilly**


	6. Chapter six

**Chapter six: Scott's time of the month**

Stiles came to pick me up at seven, exactly like we planned to. The only thing that didn't quite go according to plan was that I'd completely forgotten to set my alarm, so when the doorbell rang at seven 'o'clock sharp, I was still asleep. The thing that woke me up was dad yelling my name. It didn't only wake me up, it made me instinctively grab for my knife I kept on my night stand. I sighed as my heart rate gradually slowed down. That was one way to wake up, I guess.

"Lora!" dad yelled again. "There's a Style here, says you had plans to go pick up Scott."

"Coming!" I yelled back, rolling my eyes at how he "misunderstood" Stiles' name. I knew dad, and he was very good at remembering names, so he was just doing it to tease the guy.

As quick as I could, I changed into clean clothes (which were immediately made dirty in some places because of my lack of showering) and tied my hair up into a quick ponytail as I ran down the stairs, jumping off the second to last step.

"Ready." I said. Of course at that point in time, the best thing to happen is for my stomach to growl with its almost cliche timing to show that I was, in fact, not ready.

Was I lucky that that didn't happen until we'd been driving for round and about thirty minutes. After which Stiles, of course, laughed at me.

"You want me to stop at the bakery?" he asked, grinning at me. I shook my head.

"First we find Scott." I said, pushing myself up the seat and forcing myself to sit up straight. Stiles' face filled with worry as I mentioned Scott. "Scott is fine, the worst thing that can happen is for either someone to find him or that his arrow wound got infected." That seemed to calm him down a little.

"You know, maybe it's a good thing you didn't have breakfast. Now he can use his werewolf powers to track down the weakest prey." he joked, but I scoffed at it nonetheless.

"Don't worry Stiles, I'll be there to save you." I said, patting his shoulder. Stiles rolled his eyes and let out a fake laugh. I paid no attention to that however, as I saw someone walk on the side of the road, clutching his arm, wearing jeans with a grey sweater. If I remembered correctly, that'd be Scott.

"There he is." I said, pointing at him. "You see? Fine." I said as Stiles halted the car. Scott looked up at us, shaking his head as he entered the car, sitting down in the back. I ran my eyes over him, doing a quick scan. He seemed alright enough. If anything, he was embarrassed.

"How's your arm?" I asked, nodding at it. He let it go, pulled up his sleeve and showed me an almost completely healed wound. "Give it a good night's sleep, it'll be gone then." I said, turning back around to face the road. We spent a few minutes with no conversation or communication. That was if you didn't count Stiles' constant glances towards Scott, who, after a while, spoke up.

"You know what worries me most of all this?" he said, and I immediately got a feeling of what he was about to say. Apparently, so did Stiles, as he tensed a bit before speaking.

"If you're gonna say Allison, I'm going to punch you in the head." he said, looking him straight in the eye to let him know he was serious. The fact that he wasn't had nothing to do with it.

"She probably hates me now." Scott said, leaning against the door and closing his eyes.

"Ugh." Stiles and I said at the same time, though I didn't stop with that. "Stiles told her you had an asthma attack. She bought it." Scott let out a breath of relief at that, smiling a bit.

"Yeah, or you could just tell her the truth." Stiles suggested, sending him a meaningful look. "And revel in the awesomeness that you're a werewolf!" he looked from Scott, to me, to Scott, and eventually shook his head. "Okay, bad idea."

"Yeah, kind of." I said, letting out a bitter laugh. "Scott, Allison's father is the one who shot that arrow through your arm, you know that right? Her family are one of the most feared hunter families out there. I don't know how to break this to you but maybe you shouldn't han-"

"No!" Scott yelled, though it felt more like a whine to me. I rolled my eyes and let out a huff, increasing the tension in the air. A tension Stiles was apparently keen to break.

"Hey, we'll get through this." he said, awkwardly attempting to pat Scott on the knee. "If I have to, I'll tie you up on full moon's and feed you live mice." I raised an eyebrow at him while Scott looked at him skeptically. "I had a boa once, I could do it." Stiles said, moving his eyes back on the road. I let out a laugh.

"Well in that case, I hope you don't have any plans tonight." I said. "Get out your chains and mice, it's a full moon." I turned to Scott, smiling. "First time, huh? He shifted in his seat.

"Yeah…"

"Don't worry, we'll go easy on you."

~o~

"How is this easy?" Scott yelled, pulling at the cuffs around his wrists. We were down in our basement, in the small room dad and I had dubbed the "Shift Room" when we moved here. There, we cuffed him, tied him to the pillar in the middle of the small room, which was a bit similar to those rooms they'd put crazy criminals in. You know, the one with the soft walls? Yeah those.

"Hey, I got you the soft cuffs." I said, not facing him as I made a circle of mountain ash around him. All of this may be overdoing it, but something told me that Scott could just be much stronger than someone would estimate him to be. Stiles watched as I set everything up, a small smirk on his face. Once all supernatural precautions were set, Stiles handed me some water and muesli bars, which I put down next to Scott.

"In case you get hungry." I said, standing up and checking everything one last time. Seemed all right. I walked towards the door, looking back one last time at Scott.

"Don't fuck this up Scott, if you do, you're a dead man. Or wolf." I said, nodding at him before stepping out of the room and locking the door, adding another line of mountain ash to be sure. I put the bag of ash back in my backpack and tried the door one last time to make sure it was shut. When I turned to face Stiles, he was giving me a look.

"What?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Nothing. I'm sure that it's very normal to put not only cuffs, but also chains and two lines of mountain ash around a werewolf." he said, looking at me innocently. I rolled my eyes, not commenting on it as I led him out of the basement. Truth was, I really didn't want this to go wrong. Dad had decided to let me do most of this job, that I was ready for it (or as ready as I was ever going to be). This was the most freedom he'd ever given me on a job, so I wanted to do it right. And not get any blood on my hands. Which, if Scott died, was the case.

Stiles and I decided to get through the night with what we'd used as an excuse to tell Stiles' and Scott's parents: a horror movie night. During which Stiles grew ever more annoyed as I pointed out all the flaws and inconsistencies in the supernatural area whenever they occurred. When I didn't stop, he tried started throwing pillows at me. In the end, the entire living room was a mess, and so were we. We also had a couple of drinks so that didn't really help.

"Are we gonna talk about what happened the other day?" Stiles asked, sitting upside down on the couch, his head getting redder with every second. "Like, you were out of it. Out of nowhere. That was scary."

"It wasn't that scary." I argued, looking at him from my position. Which was lying on the floor on a bunch of pillows. "Just a lil' blackout. Don't worry about it." I said, waving it off.

"Just a little blackout?" Stiles repeated with a scoff. "Lorraine, you were white as a sheet. For a second, I thought that you'd stopped breathing." For a second there, I wanted to tell him that I was going to do anyway soon enough. Only just managing to bite my tongue and keep it in, I said something about him not getting rid of me that easily. He was about to respond when a large crash sounded through the house, coming from the basement. It was closely followed by a second crash, the sound of glass shattering.

We sobered up instantly (calm down, we only had, like, two drinks.), getting to our feet and racing towards the shift room.

~o~

Now, you must understand this: the shift room is soundproof, lightproof, bulletproof, and could contain almost all shifters.

Wasn't it delightful that Scott was one of the few it apparently couldn't contain? But it just didn't add up. The only way he could've gotten out is that someone broke into the house and let him out. Which meant that either the Alpha had come into my house unnoticed, or he had an ally. I didn't know which one was worse.

In my frustration, I kicked against the now unhinged door of the shift room.

"We need to find him, dad's going to be pissed." I said, running back upstairs to see one of the windows in the hallway smashed from the inside out.

"But how will we find him?" Stiles yelled, running after me as I headed towards my car.

"I have no idea. He will be heading for something, that's for sure." I said, getting in the car. Before the moon rose, I told Scott and Stiles all we knew: about the alpha, Derek, how Derek probably wasn't the one who bit Scott (I still needed to go check his eyes), and our deal with the Argents.

"I don't think a werewolf would risk being in the inner parts of the city, though." Stiles said. "Let's go around it, check the woods." he offered. I nodded, that seemed like a good plan.

~o~

We ended up driving for over two hours, only to find Scott walking down the streets, heading back to my place. He seemed to have gained back his control, even with the full moon.

"That's admirable, Scott!" I said, genuinely surprised by him. "Most people take way longer." Scott didn't even listen to my compliment, but went straight into telling us what he'd seen.

"First thing I realised, I was at the edge of town, looking at the alpha. Like you said, he was a beast. He attacked a woman in a car, but I think she was a hunter because she shot Derek with a gun she kept in her ca-"

"Derek was there?" Stiles asked, interrupting him.

"He must've heard the Alpha call and went to check it out." I mumbled, then looked at Scott via the car mirror, waiting for him to continue.

"The Alpha ran, Derek got shot, then this car drives up with Allison's father in it, who helped the woman empty her car. She said Derek had fourty-eight hours tops." He looked at me expectantly, wanting to know what that meant.

"Fuck." I cursed under my breath. "She poisoned him with a wolfsbane bullet. At least, that's the method the Argents prefer to use. I think she's family." Scott leaned over, sticking his head between the two front seats.

"Alright, how do we cure it?" he asked.

"Are we really going to help him?" Stiles asked, looking at him as if he were an idiot. When Scott shrugged, he looked at me. When he saw my hesitation, he shook his head. "No, come on Lorraine. You barely know the guy. Up until tonight, we thought he was the one who bit Scott!"

"Yeah well, that's because you two are idiots who jump into conclusions." I said, glaring at him. "He's a friend of the family. That means a lot. Were going to help him." I said, not leaving room for discussion.

"And how are we going to do that?" Stiles asked. "We don't even know where he is!" I let out a huff at that, fixing my eyes on the empty road. Although… who was that figure walking on the pavement?

"Oh I think we do." I said, slamming on the breaks as we drove past the man, calling for Scott to unlock the door. "Get in." I told Derek, who managed to get in the car with only a few grunts of pain. He was clutching his lower arm with his hand, so I guess that's where the bullet had hit him.

"You don't look too good, man." Stiles said, wincing at the blood seeping through Derek's fingers. Derek just glared at him.

"Anyway." Scott said, giving me a pleading look. With a roll of my eyes, I turned on the radio to prevent the inevitable uncomfortable silence as we raced back home.

~o~

" _I'll be there in four hours."_ dad said before hanging up. I put my phone back in my pocket and looked at the two werewolves on my couch, both sitting there like lost puppies. Well, one of the was a grumpy, bleeding lost puppy, but all the same. There came footsteps from the hallway and soon Stiles walked into the room with a MEDkit in his hand.

"Thanks." I said, racing towards him and taking it from him. I sat down beside Derek, taking a look at his wound before getting to work.

~o~

It was already seven 'o'clock in the morning by the time dad arrived. He'd sent us all out of the living room, saying he needed to take a look at the wound without three people gawking at him.

Scott sat down on the bottom step at first, but soon fell asleep. Stiles was pressing his ear against the door, trying to hear what was going on inside. After a while I got too annoyed, and I pulled him back from the door.

"Hey!" he protested, sticking his arms up in the air.

"Like you could hear anything. Whatever happens in there, dad will tell us. It's called trust, Stiles." He visibly tensed at that.

"You're trying to tell me about trust?" he snapped, talking fast and loud. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I've been trusting this girl that doesn't even know me for a couple of days now, I convinced my best friend, whose life is at stake, to trust her, and now she's telling me to trust people more?" he let out a scoff. "No thanks." he said, moving back to the door and placing his ear to it.

I let out an irritated sigh and let myself slide down against the wall until I sat on the floor.

Truth was, I hadn't thought about it that way. I never had. After all these years of moving from one place to another, I'd grown accustomed to treating people in a certain way. I wouldn't matter anyway, since I'd be moving again in another month or so and never see them again. Plus, often we were their best shot at surviving and they needed us, so they never complained about it.

We spent the rest of our time in silence. Not only because I didn't know what to say, and frankly Stiles didn't want to talk, but because he also fell asleep against the door after about ten minutes. When the door opened, this of course caused him to fall face first into the living room. Dad looked at him with a frown before looking up at me, one eyebrow raised. I just shrugged and stood up, waking up the both of them before going into the living room and listening to what dad had to say.

"It's a bullet filled with wolfsbane that he was hit with." dad started, confirming my suspicion from earlier. "We don't know what type of wolfsbane, so the wrong antidote might kill him. For the right one, we'll need another bullet so Deaton can identify the type."

"Wait, doctor Deaton?" Scott asked, looking up in shock. "He knows about this stuff?"

"He was a druid. He's retired, if that's the right word for it, but he still doesn't mind doing some research. What he does mind, is people asking questions about the supernatural" dad said, giving the boys a meaningful look. Deaton had tried to suppress his past for almost a decade, but when we got back in town, he'd given in. (which was probably because of me being near-death) "He can identify the wolfsbane in no time." dad then said. "But when he does, you will not harass him with questions he doesn't want to answer, understood?" The boys nodded at that.

"What are Druids?" Stiles asked.

"They keep the balance, and do anything to maintain it in both the normal and the supernatural world. They're often the negotiators between hunters and protectors." I said, explaining the most important things about them. At least all they needed to know now.

"Scott, you're close to the girl Allison Argent, am I right?" dad asked. Scott just nodded, knowing we didn't approve of their relationship. "You need to get inside her house and get the bullet. It's her aunt's."

"Bu-"

"No buts, Scott." dad interrupted him, holding one hand up in the air. "If you don't do this, he dies." Scott mumbled something, but then agreed to doing it. Dad nodded, content. "Now you boys get your asses out of here, it's eight in the morning and I've got business to attend to." he said, waving at the door before walking away. Since the two looked slightly startled, I stood up.

"I'll let you out." I said, giving them a faint smile. Even though I had training on this, the being awake for over twenty-four hours was starting to get to me, even with some coffee I'd managed to down here and there. I led them to the door, making sure they had everything with them. Realising they'd come here with my car, I went inside to get my keys and gave them a ride home.

~o~

I was biting the inside of my lip, not knowing whether or not to say something. I'd just dropped off Scott and was sitting in silence with Stiles. Part of me wanted to apologise for how I'd been acting, because Stiles had a point. The other part wanted to shrug it off, we wouldn't be staying in Beacon Hills for long anyway, why bother making non-job related friends? That was part of why I was staying away from that Lydia girl. And why would Stiles be any different? He was Scott's best friend, so it was his business too, that's why I was hanging out with him. Yes, it was. Not because he was genuinely a great person. No. There's no point in making friends you know you can't keep.

So I bit my tongue instead, spending the rest of the ride in silence with him, only breaking it when saying goodbye. I'd keep hanging out with him, but I won't let him get close. I had no time for friends, I've learned so much. Especially now we've got a dying werewolf on our hands. Which was also against our deal with the Argents.

All of this because of some stupid magic bullet.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading this chapter! It didn't quite reach the 4k, but a lot of stuff happened so I didn't want to add any more.**

 **Also: This story will have fourteen, maybe fifteen chapters total. So that means that we're almost halfway! I hope you enjoyed it so far, and trust me, there is a lot more to come. Look at next week's chapter, for example, when we'll get some more information on Lorraine's "condition..."**

 **Anyway, that's all for this chapter, until the next one!**

 **~Lilly**


	7. Chapter seven

**Chapter seven: Magic bullets and Alpha hunts(ish)**

"Pick up your goddamn phone McCall!" I yelled at my phone as it went to voicemail. We were at the animal clinic (we being Deaton, Derek, dad, and Stiles -he insisted-) and Derek had maybe an hour left to live. Let's pretend that I was acting well under pressure, shall we? Anyway, Scott was at Allison's, he was supposed to get in, find an opportunity to take the bullet, and go. But he was taking hours and Derek's condition was getting worse.

"Easy, Lora." dad called over his shoulder. He and Deaton were trying to disinfect the bullet wound the best they could, which took two people since Derek was pretty damn strong and tended to pull away his arm when someone hurt him.

"Someone is dying here and Scott's probably making out with Allison or something, I will not take it easy." I hissed, dialing Scott again, ignoring the odd glances Stiles was giving me. I was waiting for it to go back to voicemail when Scott picked up.

" _I've got the bullet. The box said something French, it translated to nordic blue monkshood, is that good enough?"_

I let out a sigh of relief, assured him it was enough and that he didn't have to take the bullet, and after yelling the type of wolfsbane (monkshood and wolfsbane are the same thing).

I then told him to leave the room exactly as he'd entered it before hanging up, watching Deaton apply the right antidote to the wound. Derek hissed in pain, but it was way better than what he'd planned to do: take to content of the bullet and rub it in the wound. It would work, yes, but the pain would be agonising.

"So, you're okay?" Stiles asked, pointing at his arm and looking around at everyone, searching for confirmation. "He's okay?"

"Yeah, nearly died and there's a family of crazy hunters on my ass, I'm great." Derek said through gritted teeth as he pushed himself off Deaton's workbench.

"Well, sarcasm is a good sign, means you're not dead." I said, putting my phone back in my pocket. "But you're right about the Argents. What are we going to do about them?" I asked, looking at dad, who let out a sigh.

"I'll handle the Argents." he said, waving it off. "But if the alpha attacked Kate, they have all the rights to hunt it down. And you know how they'll do that." he said, giving both me and Derek a meaningful look. I let out an irritated groan. Oh it just had to become even more complicated, didn't it?

"They're going to use Scott. Or Derek." I said, looking at Stiles to make sure he understood what was going on. "The alpha bit him, he's part of his pack. They've got a connection, with the right practice, Scott can find him. Also Derek is just a good werewolf in general, he could find him eventually." Stiles nodded, so I gathered that he understood. We sat in silence for a while, thinking about the situation. What I thought? Well it was mostly a chain of "ugh fuck"'s and the casual "shit" in between, but below all that my brain was scanning all the options available.

"I'll teach him." Derek said eventually. "I'm the only one here who's a werewolf, I'm his best option." I nodded, he had a fair point. But dad wasn't just giving it to him like that.

"Few conditions:" dad said, "Don't hurt him, and focus only on the alpha. We'll teach him the rest." I knew that by "we" he meant "me", but anyway. Derek nodded, though a bit reluctantly, and my dad clapped his hands together. "Then were done for now."

~o~

 _One week later_

I sat down at our usual table, on my usual spot. Usual being the spot Lydia had insisted on me taking, which was right next to her and opposite of Jackson. Oddly enough, the past week Lydia had grown a bit on me. Whenever the two of us were alone (which wasn't often) she acted like a genuine person. (I think our little call from a while ago triggered that) And she was surprisingly smart, funny in her own way, and (in a manipulative, could be considered scary, way) caring and kind. Next to me sat Stiles, opposite of him sat Danny, next to him sat Allison and opposite of her was Scott. Anyway, back to the point: Lydia.

It had gotten to the point where I even met up with her after school. It was so she could help me with physics, but I found myself involuntarily sticking around even after when we were done. Whatever friendship Lydia and I once had, it was forcing it's way back. Even though I tried my best to push it down.

"What are you all daydreamy about?" the girl in question asked as she sat down next to me. I shrugged.

"Not much. Those two, on the other hand," I said, pointing at Scott and Allison giggling at each other as they made their way over, "I can tell what they're thinking about."

"Ugh, Lorraine, please, I'd like to not puke all over my lunch thanks." Lydia said, making me laugh. I just shook my head when Allison and Scott sat down, looking at me with a frown on their faces. What we were talking about?

"Oh nothing." I said, smiling innocently at them. "Oh, Scott, can we do out study session on thursday instead of friday? Dad promised to take me to his job." Scott nodded, and I smiled. Three weeks left to go, and he was improving greatly. Each Tuesday and Friday we'd train and each Wednesday he went over to Derek's place. Adding to that were his lacrosse trainings and keeping up his grades. That last one wasn't really working out for him. But I had to give it to him, he was a very fast learner.

"Hey." Stiles said as he set down his plate rather violently on the table, effectively pulling me from my thoughts, and then proceeded to sit down. Again, rather violently.

"What's wrong?" I asked, taking a bit out of my apple.

"Still no leads on dad's case." he said, prodding his food with a fork. His 'dad's case' as he had dubbed it, meant the Alpha. Though his dad was also looking into the killings, he didn't know what he was dealing with. Stiles did, and practically spent all his free time trying to figure out who it could be, but apparently to no avail. I had tried to help him, but most of the time it just ended up in me lying on his bed, translating, whilst he printed out and read dozens of police reports.

"I'm sure he'll solve it." I said, patting him on the back before facing Lydia, who was talking about her plans for the weekend. Wait, scratch that, apparently they were "our" plans. A small smile grew in my face as I watched her fight with Jackson about lacrosse or what not.

~o~

 _Three days later_

I looked down at the paper in my hand one more time, making sure I was at the right place. I'd looked up where Isaac lived, as it was his birthday today. He didn't want to celebrate, or at least that's what he'd said. But I wasn't going to let a frien- crap.

I am really bad at this, aren't I? Yeah, of course Lorraine, no friends. Especially since you're going to die anyway. My entire life, and I've had around ten friends total. Now I move to this stupid town and I've got myself three, four if you include Scott, in only a few weeks!

Anyway, the address was correct, so I rang the doorbell. After a while, a man with rather harsh eyes opened the door. I presumed he was Isaac's father.

"What do you want?" he asked, something about his voice making me feel uncomfortable. Something in me was telling me that the man in front of me might be the reason why Isaac was so jumpy and shy.

"I'm a friend of Isaac's, wanted to pay him a visit." I said, smiling innocently at him. "Since it's his birthday and all."

"Well he's busy." the man said, about to close the door when I held my hand against it, stopping him.

"Doing what, sir?" I asked, tilting my head at him and keeping the smile on my face. "I just want to see him. Five minutes?"

"No." he said. "Now get off my property before I call the cops." and with that, he slammed the door shut in my face. My smile fell, and it got replaced by a glare. Walking around the house, I saw an open window on the second floor, next to the rainpipe. I let out a sigh and started climbing. Let's hope that the room wasn't his father's.

~o~

Luckily, the room was Isaac's, not his father's. Not so luckily, he got scared so badly when he saw me jump into his room that he fell off his chair, effectively drawing his father's attention. I put a finger to my lips and walked over to his closet, just managing to crawl in before his dad stormed into his room. Between the old shirts and socks (and an overwhelming smell of deodorant), I tried my best to keep still.

"What was that noise?" he asked.

"I… fell. Off my chair." Isaac mumbled.

"And why… did you fall off your chair?" his father's voice was low, threatening. For once, I hoped that I was wrong.

"I-I- I was watching a video on youtube and there was a jumpscare." Isaac stammered. Footsteps sounded through the room, followed by a lot of things falling to the floor, and then the unmistakable sound of someone getting punched. I winced. I had been right after all. Every fibre of me wanted to jump out and defend Isaac, but instead I held my breath until he opened the closet. His father had left. He had also left Isaac with a bleeding nose.

"I'm going to kill him." I whispered, getting out of the closet and checking out his nose. "I don't think that it's broken." I said, tilting his head up a bit. "Keep it like that, it'll hold back the bleeding." I searched the room for tissues, pitting a few under his nose and using one to clean the blood off his face.

"Thanks." Isaac mumbled, breathing heavily.

"You need to go to the cops." I said, but Isaac shook his head, mumbling "no" a few times. "Isaac, it can't go on like this. Isaac, if you don't tell the sheriff's department, I will." His head moved down, and two terrified eyes met mine.

"No, no, please don't." he begged.

"There is no way I'm goi-"

"I already lost my mother. I don't want to also lose my father." he said, and it struck a chord. I let out a sigh and stepped back.

"If this gets any worse, you let me know." I said, hearing footsteps come up the stairs. I reached into my pocket, taking out ten dollars. "Happy birthday, Isaac. Let's celebrate it properly later, okay?" With that, I ran towards the window and climbed down the rainpipe. I just managed to catch a few words as his father came into his room before I got into my car, making sure to wait a while before leaving so things didn't get suspicious.

I know that I promised Isaac not to tell anyone, but I would damn well make sure that he'd spend as much time as possible away from his father.

~o~

 _Two days later_

Okay, so, let's put everything together: There was a powerful Alpha on the loose, a new beta that couldn't yet fully control himself and was in love with an Argent, the most feared hunter family in America, who also just happened to be in town. Then there was Kate Argent, who didn't care about the code and just went around shooting magic bullets. Adding to that was my problem with keeping Isaac's secret, and me being stupid enough when I was going to move away or die sooner than I was staying here.

Okay, so that wasn't very clear. At all. But you get me, I've been telling you what's going on. What I thought was most important anyway. Sure, Scott is having troubles with Allison, I think Lydia and Jackson were having some… difficulties as well, but I don't have much time, and I can't tell you everything that might or might not be happening.

Anyway, so there's a lot of shit going on. I mean, what could possibly be added to that list to top it all off?

Oh I don't know, what about Jackson the jerk figuring out that Scott is a werewolf? Oh no, I've got an even better one: Jackson finding out he's a werewolf and wanting to be one too! Wasn't this all just great? So that left me having to go to Jackson and talk to him. Well that just wasn't going to end well was it?

"Are you an idiot?" I asked, startling Jackson as he closed his locker only to find me behind it.

"What do you want?" he said, his tone harsh as usual.

"For starters, explain why the hell you would want to be a werewolf!" I hissed.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe the strength, speed, hearing, healing" he said, glaring at me.

"Yeah, you can't exactly play superhero when your ass is getting hunted down!" he opened his mouth to protest, but I wasn't done. "And no, they will notice you, you wont be able to control yourself, they will find you and kill you no matter what you want to achieve with you 'powers'."

"I don't care. And you're going to get me the bite. Or I tell Allison."

"Like she'd believe you. You have no proof." That threw him off a little. He wasn't bluffing about telling Allison, but he hadn't expected me to challenge him to do it.

"I'll get it." he said, recomposing himself.

"While you're at it, try to rethink this. It won't be all rainbows and superpowers, you're well aware of that, right?" I asked. He couldn't hide his surprise for my sudden concern. I figured it was best to not tell him that that concern was more for Lydia and his parents than for him.

"Yeah." he said, rolling his eyes. "Right." He walked away after that. I let out a sigh and just hoped that he took my warning seriously. But there was just no way to get through that thick skull of his, was there?

~o~

 _Two days later_

"Get off my spot, Stillinski." I said, glaring at the person in question. We were having a game night with the three of us: Scott, Stiles, and I. Now usually I wasn't too picky on where I sat, but when gaming… I needed a good spot, opposite of the screen. I'd just gone to get us some popcorn, and when I came back, he was sitting on my spot.

"Nu-uh." he said, shaking his head.

"You know I could kill you on the spot, right?" I said, but he just grinned at me, knowing I wouldn't actually kill him. "Fine." I huffed, making him smirk in victory. He thought that he'd won. Good. I walked over to the couch, seemingly about to sit down next to him. Instead, I just took my controller and sat down on his lap. I could feel him tense, and I think his breath choked up a bit. But as I felt him tense, so did I. As he tried to normalise his breathing, I was doing the same thing. Only with more success. I didn't know if he got the same warm tingly feeling in his stomach, but part of me hoped he did.

Scott burst out in laughter, and I wished I could see what Stiles' face looked like. I could've turned around, I suppose, but I was too focused on not freaking out.

Sure, Stiles was… nice. And funny, kind, smart, ca- no, no, no, no, no. This is not happening. This is just my brain doing one desperate attempt at fucking itself up with hormones. And even if that wasn't true, Stiles has a crush on Lydia. He's had it for years now. He was just way too awkward with girls, that's why he reacted this way.

"Are you going to move now, or can we start playing?" I asked, a smirk forming on my face.

"N-no, moving, I mean yes moving... moving. Moving sounds… good?" he said. I stood up and let him scoot over to the side before letting myself fall back on the couch. From the corner of my eye, I could see red on Stiles' cheeks. A small, content smile formed on my face. Once I became aware of it, I wiped it off. Gaming, Lorraine, focus on the gaming.

~o~

"You're a dead man, Scott!" I shouted, trying to stab him with my knife. We were, playing some kind of first person shooter game, and Scott was winning (much to both my and Stiles' surprise and annoyance). I let out a frustrated groan when Stiles managed to shoot me in the head.

"Actually, I think you're the dead one here." he said, being the stupid smartass he was. Stupid, kind of cure, smartass. Oh my God, pull yourself together. Sit on his lap one time and suddenly you're completely besmitten? Okay, so I might have been hanging out with him more than necessary in the last few weeks. And maybe I somehow seemed to smile a bit more if I was around him. But that's what friends do, right? Make you happy?

"Very funny." I said, prodding my elbow into his side. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom." I said, taking my bag and walking out of his room, through the hall, into the bathroom. Once there, I let myself wince in pain.

Almost frantically, I searched my bag for the bottle of painkillers I got from Deaton. Got meaning that I got them after practically begging for them and for him not to tell anyone about it. Yeah, not my proudest moment. But I didn't want dad worrying any more, I didn't want him to see me suffer. I was going to die anyway, I wanted to decide myself how I was going down.

The painkillers worked almost instantly, and were the only things that could keep me going at times. Deaton had also done a few tests on me, and the results were… not very good, but I can't say that I was complaining

I had around six months to live.

 **A/N: So, this chapter was all over the place and I'm sorry for it, but I couldn't think of any other way to collect all these small scenes into a proper chapter without it being a total mess. I hope you enjoyed reading it nonetheless.**

 **Due to timezones, I don't even know if this chapter will be up on Saturday where you're living, but I'm just sticking to my own time.**

 **As always, thanks for reading and until the next chapter, which will cover the episode "The Tell."**

 **~Lilly**


	8. Chapter eight

**Chapter eight: The tell**

"I cannot believe that you dragged me into this." I said, looking at the "Video 2C" store we were parked in front of. How the hell did Lydia manage to drag me into a movie night with her and Jackson?

"Yeah, and I am not watching the notebook again." Jackson said, glaring at Lydia, who just smirked at him. "Can we please watch the movie I picked? It's the greatest sports film ever made."

"No." Lydia said, still smirking.

"Lydia, I swear you're gonna like it, it has-"

"No." Lydia repeated, looking at Jackson with a knowing smirk on her face. With a groan and a roll of his eyes, he got out of the car and went into the shop.

"I have to say, I'm impressed." I said, watching Jackson looking for the notebook through the window. "You've got to teach me that one."

"Only if you watch the notebook with us till the end without falling asleep." Lydia said, smiling because she knew I'd never manage to sit through the movie. Instead of trying to convince her (which, looking at Jackson, wouldn't work), I let myself lie down on the back seat of the car, pulling out my phone. Lydia seemed to be too busy with taking pictures of herself to have a conversation, so why the hell not?

All of a sudden, the light in the car dimmed. I pushed myself off the seat, frowning when I saw that the lights in the store had gone out.

"Has Jackson come out yet?" I asked, tapping on Lydia's shoulder.

"What?" she asked, turning down the radio.

"Has Jackson come out yet?" I repeated.

"No, why?"

"The lights've gone out." I said, opening the door and getting out of the car. In the back of the store, the lights were flickering, but I couldn't see Jackson anywhere. "I'm gonna go in." I said to Lydia before walking towards the store.

"Hey, Jackson?" I called out as I opened the door. "Everything alright in there?" Instead of Jackson, a deep growl came as a response.

"Get out of there!" Jackson shouted, and my head shot towards one of the dvd racks. He'd given away his location. But apparently I was more interesting, as two red eyes raced towards me, the flickering lights sometimes allowing me to see the body they belonged to.

It was the Alpha.

Without thinking much about it, I took out my gun I kept in my boot, fired one shot towards the ceiling, and made a run for it. The shot had startled it for a second but it by the time I was around the corner, the Alpha jumped out of the window just ahead of me, and ran away. Lydia let out a scream as it passed the car.

Exhausted, I let myself slide down against the wall, breathing heavily as I sat down on the ground.

~o~

The police came soon enough after Jackson called 911, accompanied by an ambulance. Lydia was in shock, sitting in the ambulance, with her legs hanging out of it as Jackson held her hand. Even though they did give me a blanket (for the shock, apparently) the police was more interested in why I had a gun.

"I've got a permit." I said, acting desperate and scared. People tended to let me get away with more when I did that. "W-we moved in and there were these attacks and I got scared so my dad took me to a shop and we went through the full programme and I promise it's just for self defence, I didn't even shoot at it, I ju-" I talked at a rapid speed, so I was glad that the officer I was talking to interrupted me before I ran out of breath.

"That's alright miss, I'm just going to have to see the permit." she said, and I nodded.

"Y-yeah, it's in my bag, somewhere. It's in Lydia's car." I said, shaking my head and holding onto my blanket tightly. The officer nodded and walked towards the car, saying I could get back to my friends.

When I got back to the ambulance, Jackson was practically shouting at sheriff Stillinski.

"I just want to go home!" he yelled, throwing his hands up in the air.

"I understand-" the sheriff said, his voice calm.

"No, you don't understand!" Jackson said, stepping closer to the sheriff. "Which I find pretty surprising, since it should be a pretty basic concept to grasp for a minimum-wage rent-a-cop like you!"

"Jackson!" I snapped, smacking the back of his head. "They're trying to help and you're being a giant dickhead about it. Just shut your mouth and let them do their jobs so you don't die lying in your own puke tonight!"

Jackson clenched his jaw, but walked away nonetheless.

"Oh, wow, is that a dead body?" a slightly too excited voice called out from behind me. I frowned and looked around the sheriff to see none other than Stiles Stillinski standing next to a cop car, with the door open, and pointing at a stretcher that was being carried towards the ambulance. When he realised I was there, he looked worried, so I smiled and nodded, showing I was alright. He let out a sigh of relief and smiled back.

That smile faded when he saw his dad glaring at him, so he reluctantly got back into the car.

"Alright, back up." the sheriff said, waving the crowd that was gathering around the site away. When three other officers ran up to take it over from him, he walked back to the three of us.

"I'm going to need a more detailed description of what happened, think you're up to it right now?" he asked, glancing at Lydia, who was now visibly shaking. "Maybe later." he said, but I was not ready to spend the night with a traumatised Lydia, especially now that Jackson seemed to have calmed down. He was probably going to spend the night with her and this was my only chance to escape.

"I can do it now." I said, taking off my blanket and throwing it into the ambulance. The sheriff raised his eyebrows at me, but nodded. "But… can it be somewhere else?" I asked, looking around uncomfortably. The sheriff nodded.

"Sure, I'll drive you to the station and we can talk there." he said, putting an arm on my shoulder and walking me to his car, suddenly stopping when he realised: "You… Stiles is in there, he'll probably be very nosy. You don't mind?" he asked, pointing to another cop car. "I could ask someone else to-"

"It's fine." I said, giving him a faint smile. The sheriff nodded and we walked all the way to the car, to which he opened the door. Muttering out a quick thanks, I got into the car. The sheriff stood next to the door for a moment, holding it open. He then leaned towards me so I could hear what he was saying above all the noise.

"I'm going to do one last round here, make sure everything is done properly, you stay put." he said, pulling back for a moment before leaning in again, "and Stiles, behave." he said, giving his son a stern look.

"As if I'd eve-" Stiles didn't get to finish his sentence, as the sheriff slammed the door shut before he could. Stiles didn't waste a second then, but immediately asked me what had happened.

So I told him as best as I could. Which was pretty darn good because it happened not even an hour ago. After my short description he started nodding, which was soon followed by a frown and the tapping of his feet. After a minute of it, I was near insanity.

"So, have you come up with a plan to overthrow the government yet, or you want to hear mine?" I asked. He stopped and nodded once more, looking a bit guilty.

"I think that I'm just going with the mountain lion. From the three of us, I'm obviously the one who's in the best mental state at the moment, so they'll believe me. I will have to add that his eyes looked red, though, Jackson would've noticed that. And act a bit more, you know…"

"Traumatised?" Stiles said, leaning forward and looking at Lydia through the window. "How's she doing?" he asked, his voice filled with worry.

"She'll survive. She's remarkably strong." I said, looking through the window as well.

Jackson had sat down besides Lydia and was putting one arm over her, she was already shaking less visibly. Next to me, Stiles let himself fall back into his seat, letting out a grumble.

"Jealous?" I asked, a small smirk on my face. "How long exactly have you had a crush on this girl?"

"Since third grade." he mumbled.

"Did you tell me? I would've totally tried to hook you two up."

"No, no, it was months after you left." he said, followed by a few mumbled words.

"What's that?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. He opened his mouth, but wasn't able to say anything as his dad entered the car, taking place behind the steering wheel.

"Sorry that took so long." he said, starting up the car.

"It's fine." I said, staring out of the window as we drove towards the Sheriff's station.

~o~

"So, the lights stopped working, you went inside to look for Jackson, then the mountain lion headed for you instead of him. You shot a bullet into the ceiling to startle it, then ran outside. Then the lion did… what?" the sheriff repeated, gesturing at me to fill in the last part.

"He jumped out of the window and headed for the woods."

"That's it?" he asked, one hand underneath the file so he was ready to close it. I bit my lip and looked around nervously. "Lorraine, if there's anything else, you need to tell me." he said seriously.

"I-it's eyes th- god you're going to think I'm crazy." I said, shaking my head and looking down to my feet. "They were red." I said, my voice soft.

"Red?" the sheriff repeated, not believing it.

"But, I mean, it must've been the red emergency lights that were reflected in its eyes, right?" I asked. I did the best I could to sound desperate. Acting was part of the package when it comes to training to become a protector, so I think that I succeeded.

"It was probably that, and your mind playing tricks on you. You were in a very dangerous situation, and your brain was working hard on finding a way out. You did well, Lorraine." he said, closing the file before getting up from his chair. "I think that we're done here." he said, patting my shoulder as he walked past me and towards the door, which he opened. My dad immediately walked in, headed straight for me.

"You okay?" he asked, his eyes scanning me for anything that would answer that question with a no. I just nodded and gave him a faint smile.

"I just want to go home."

~o~

Once I got home, I told dad the most detailed description of events I could give him, after which he demanded to check for any medical issues himself. Believe me when I say I tried to tell him that it wasn't necessary, but he wouldn't listen.

"Your pulse is… a bit on the low side." he said. He frowned and looked up at me. "You sure you-"

"Yes!"

"Alright then, jacket off, I want to make sure you haven't got any glass stuck in your arms." he said. I took my jacket off and he started searching. It was quiet for a while, until…

"Oh, that's…" he said, putting a finger on one of my shoulderblades. "Can I take a look at that?" he asked.

"At what?" I asked, taking off my shirt.

"The scarring where the Raven… anyway, it's like it has thickened. I think there's bodily fluids stuck in it…" From the corner of my eye, I could see him reaching for something. That was soon followed by a sharp pain in my back.

"I'm just taking out the fluid." he said, pulling back the syringe. "Oh."

"What?" I asked, turning around. "Oh." In dad's hand was a syringe filled with a dark black liquid. "That can't be good."

He didn't really appreciate me saying that.

~o~

We were at Deaton's, and waiting for the results of the test he ran on me. Well, dad was waiting, I was dreading them. Or rather, my reaction when dad found out I had half a year left to live. So when Deaton came in, I'd expected him to tell dad, who would do god knows, and me awkwardly sitting there, pretending to be shocked.

One month.

I didn't have to pretend to be shocked now.

"One month?" I exclaimed. It was like someone dropped three elephants' worth of weight on me.

"Maybe less. I'm sorry." was all that Deaton could say. I bit the inside of my lip, watching dad from the corner of my eyes. He had his head in his hands. I let out a deep sigh.

"What will happen to me? Will it just… be over one day?" I asked.

"Afraid not. From the few sources I have on this, the last week or so is when the symptoms really start to kick in. I nodded, waiting for him to continue. "You'll have migraines, vivid dreaming, sometimes paired with blackouts. Also, an almost constant pain where the Raven set it's claws in you." Well shit.

"What do you want to do?" dad asked, looking at me for the first time since Deaton told us. "It's your last month, you should decide what you want to do." My last month. I let out a deep sigh.

"I want to finish the job." I said, nodding at my own words, making sure it was the right decision. "I want to have finished my own first job, made sure that this town is safe."

"You don't have to go to school." dad said, probably in attempt to make my last month more enjoyable. I couldn't help but laugh a little at that, though it came out weak.

"Yeah, I'd like that." I said, looking back at Deaton. "Can we go now?" He nodded and started putting away his equipment. We said goodbye and dad walked ahead of me to lead me out of the clinic.

"There is one condition, though." he said just before we got into the car. "If it gets too dangerous, I'm taking the job back."

It wasn't that I agreed with him or was happy with it, but more that I knew that arguing would be useless, so I nodded and got into the car.

~o~

Dad had kept his promise, I didn't have to go to school the day after. Only I hadn't thought to inform Scott or Stiles on this (I had called Lydia to make sure she was alright, but she sounded like she was high, so she wasn't at school either.) which inevitably led to Stiles calling me right after first period.

" _Hey, you weren't in class, you sure everything's okay?"_ Stiles asked once I answered the phone.

"Yeah, yeah." I said. Should I tell him? I mean, it's not really ideal if I just drop dead the next month and he didn't see it coming. But should I let him suffer in the fact that one of his friends was going to die? Crap. I'm really his friend now, aren't I? Well, I say crap, but I couldn't help but smile at the thought of us being friends.

" _You want me to come over after school?"_ he asked.

"No, no it's fine. Listen… I'm not really going to school anymore."

Silence.

" _Why not? I mean, lucky you, but why not?"_

"It's not the best time to tell you everything now. Tell you what, I'm heading over to Lydia's place in a few hours, check if she's alright. How about you come pick me up and then we'll talk."

" _Okay, yeah, sure. Lydia's place, right. I'll see you… at Lydia's place."_ I let out a chuckle at that.

"See you, Stiles." I said, waiting for him to respond before hanging up. I was sitting at the table in the kitchen, with dad opposite of me. He raised an eyebrow at me.

"You're going to tell him?" he asked skeptically. I bit the inside of my lip and nodded.

"He deserves to know." I said, more to convince myself than dad, who let out a sigh.

"It's not my decision to make." he said, standing up and walking towards the stove. "You want some scrambled eggs?"

"Yeah." I said, watching him take a pan out of the cupboard and make the eggs. "Any chance you could give me a ride to Lydia's place later?"

Dad turned around for a moment and looked at me. He then nodded and went back to the eggs.

"Of course, sweetheart."

~o~

Dad had dropped me off at Lydia's place around thirty minutes before Stiles would arrive, which gave me some time to talk about what had happened with her. Or so I'd thought, but I hadn't expected Lydia to be under a ton of medicine. And when I say a ton, I mean a shitload of it.

"She took them to calm her nerves." her mother explained as I picked up the bottle that stood on her nightstand. Lydia wasn't asleep, but it was like she was daydreaming, staring off into the distance. She was basically drunk.

"How many did she take?" I asked, looking at the bottle in worry. "You could take down a horse with these things." Her mother just let out a sigh and left the room, leaving me alone with Lydia. Speaking of which, she seemed to slowly gather back consciousness.

"Hey." she said, a goofy grin on her face as she prodded a finger into my leg. "It's you. I didn't think you would come." I turned around to face her and sat down on the floor next to her bed.

"I wanted to check how you were doing after the attack." I said. She was prodding her finger into my shoulder now, so I just took her hand in mine. "Did you see what it was?" I asked, my head tilted to the side.

"A mountain lion." she said, sounding dazed.

"Alright…" I said, taking a plush giraffe off the floor. "And what's this?"

"A mountain lion." she said, as if it were obvious.

"Lydia, as soon as you stop being high, I'm going to explain things to you." I said, squeezing her hand. "The Alpha… it lost interest in me and Jackson pretty quickly." -Lydia giggled when I mentioned Jackson- "But when you screamed… I didn't tell anyone yet, but it stopped. It stopped, looked back at the car. I could swear to God it was smirking at you." I looked over at her, she was just smiling goofily at me, not taking in anything of what I was saying. "You're being pulled into this, and if it goes any further you need to know what is happening for you really go crazy."

"'M not crazy." she said, her words slurred. I let out a laugh.

"You sound like you're drunk."

"No, you're drunk."

"Just go to sleep, Lydia." I said, letting go of her hand and standing up. I pushed her further onto her bed and put a blanket over her. She was having none of it, constantly throwing off the blanket and rolling back to the edge of the bed. After a minute or two, I gave up and went back to sitting by her side, listening to her ramble utter nonsense. I was still doing that when the door opened. Stiles and Lydia's mother stepped in.

"Honey, there's a Stiles here to see you." she said.

"What the hell is a Stiles?" Lydia asked, not even looking up. I let out a laugh at Stiles' confused expression.

"She took some meds." I called out, smiling at the two standing by the door. "It's alright, come in." I said. Stiles smiled and Lydia's mom got out of the room, closing the door behind her.

"How is she?" Stiles asked, looking at Lydia, who rolled to lay on her side, one arm on her hip and one supporting her head.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. Man, she managed to sound like she was the one ruling the entire planet, even when on drugs. Stiles glanced at me, fiddling with his hands.

"I- I was just making sure that you were okay." he said, gesturing at Lydia, who just let out a "hmm." before turning around, using her arms for support.

"Why?" she asked, patting on the bed.

"Um.." Stiles said. He let out a scoff and moved over to sit on the bed. "Because I was worried about you, today." Lydia ran her hand through her hair before placing it on his upper arm. "How- How are you feeling?" he said. I put a hand over my mouth to keep in my laughter as his breath got stuck in his throat for a second.

"I feel..." Lydia said, pushing herself up and leaning into Stiles. "Fantastic."

Stiles let out an uncomfortable laugh, looking at me for help. I rolled my eyes and handed him the medicine.

"Woah." he said, reading the label on the side. "I bet you can't say: 'I saw Suzy sitting in the shoeshine shop' ten times fast." he said. Lydia raised an eyebrow at him. She was one step away from saying: "Oh, really?" But, instead of that, she tried saying it.

"I saw Shu-" she giggled at her own mistake. "I shaw…" she said, leaning closer to Stiles, who grinned. She let out a huff and stared at the wall before letting herself fall back down on the bed. "I saw…" she said, staring at nothing.

"A mountain lion?" Stiles asked. Lydia nodded.

"A mountain lion." she repeated. Stiles looked at me. He knew it wasn't a mountain lion. I rolled my eyes and picked up the plush giraffe from the floor. Once again Lydia said that it was a mountain lion.

"Wow you're drunk." Stiles said as I put the giraffe on her nightstand. Lydia let out a groan and let her head fall on Stiles' lap. He tensed.

"Lorraine, could you…" I let out a chuckle and moved to sit on my knees. I gently took Lydia's head and moved her away from Stiles. "Thanks." he whispered, getting off the bed and tossing the blanket over Lydia, who was now fast asleep.

"I thought you'd like Lydia lying in your arms. Or legs." I said, waggling my eyebrows at him. Stiles threw one of Lydia's pillows right in my face as a response. "Rude." I said, putting the pillow back on the bed. "Let's get out of here." I said, my stomach dropping as I realised what I was going to tell him.

~o~

"So, what was this thing you were going to tell me?" Stiles asked, taking a sip from his milkshake. Before I got a chance to tell him, he'd offered to go grab some food first, which we were now eating in his car.

"I... " I let out a sigh. I had not clue where to start. "When we were heading for Beacon Hills, we passed a small group of men trying to shoot a bird out of a tree. Said bird was a Raven." I looked at him, making sure he knew what kind of Raven I was talking about. I had mentioned it when we were playing a game. "I'm not going to tell you the whole thing, but in the end, we saved the Raven, and it killed the group of men. Now, this bird was pissed, and it was heading for me. Dad yelled at me to get to the car." I let out a scoff. "Stupid. If there's one thing you must know about a Raven is that it will always get you. And got me it did."

"What happened?" Stiles asked. I could see in his face that he knew where this was heading.

"It got me. Put its claws right into my back, between my shoulderblades. I survived, but barely. I was dying. Dad brought me to Deaton, he told us that it's rare, but sometimes a person survives the Raven's claw."

"That's, that's good right?" Stiles asked, a glint of hope in his eyes.

"Deaton also said that those people died shortly after. Some lasted a year, maybe two. Dad and I went back to him yesterday, to run a couple of tests." I looked down at my hands. "He said I have a month. Or less."

Silence.

Slowly, I moved my eyes to see Stiles, not looking up. His hands were shaking and tears were streaming down his cheeks.

I had no clue what to do. Did I say sorry? Like that was going to help. Do nothing? Way to go. Try to comfort him? Should I? God here we go.

I unfastened my seatbelt and got out of the car. I ran around it and opened the driver's door. Stiles seemed to have reached a state of shock, he wasn't really responsive to anything, so I unfastened his seatbelt as well and pulled him out of the jeep, hugging him. Which was for two reasons: the comfort bit, and that I was pretty sure that he'd fall if I let him go.

He slowly wrapped his arms around me, but once he did, he didn't let go. Perhaps he was afraid that if he let go, he'd never see me again. But he didn't, and neither did I.

We'd been standing there for almost a minute now, and slowly but surely tears started forming in my eyes. Fuck. I didn't want to cry. But standing there, in an empty parking lot, hugging a still silently crying Stiles, I did.

~o~

Once we both had calmed down it was a bit awkward to say the least. We got back into the car and finished our food in silence. When we were finished with that, we had no clue what to do.

"So…" Stiles said, his voice thick. "Do you want to go home or…"

"No." I said, before even realising it. I just didn't want to risk getting home and letting dad see that I've been crying. That must be why. "Can we… go to your place? Go study or something?" Stiles nodded.

"Yeah." he said, eyeing me worriedly. "Yeah, sure."

~o~

We were sitting in Stiles' room in silence, studying. Stiles was sitting at his desk working on his chemistry homework, I was translating pages of our family's bestiary. Which was thousands of pages long and written in old english. It was originally written in Latin, then translated into medieval English in the middle ages, and then continuously translated throughout the years. Now there were around one hundred pages of old english, around the 6th century, a thousand in medieval english, and another two thousand or so in "modern" english. (with some weird words like "zwodder" or 'groking")

The Protector community did have translators, but updates were always welcome. This way I could at least be of use in my last few weeks.

I was almost finished with a page on Wendigos when Stiles dad knocked on the door and opened it.

"Please tell me I'm gonna hear good news at this parent teacher thing tonight." he said, though he didn't look too hopeful.

"Depends what you define as good news." Stiles said, fiddling with his hands as he looked up at his father.

"I define it as you getting straight A's and having no behavioural issues." he said.

"Might wanna change that definition, sheriff." I said, smirking at the man.

"In that case, I know more than enough." he said, leaving the room again. Stiles grimaced, making me laugh.

"You've got anything below a C?" I asked, trying to hide my smirk.

"Economics." he mumbled, standing up and walking to his printer. After five full minutes of printing, he was done.

"You've finished already?" I asked, laying down my pen and standing up. I walked over to the printer and let out a sigh. He'd printed out the fire department's report on the Hale fire.

"Stiles…" I said, taking the paper from the printer. "Why can't you let it- arson?" I asked, looking at the words with a frown. "The Hale fire might've been arson?"

"Apparently, possible arson." Stiles said, taking the papers back from me. "Nine deaths, one survivor." he read.

"Who was the survivor?" I asked, tilting my head so I could read the paper. "Peter Hale." I read.

"Right here, it says that he's at a recovery institute." Stiles said, his finger indicating the name of the institute. "Hey, you've got any plans Saturday?"

"Should we, though?" I asked. I mean, the man was in recovery, he was probably traumatised. Last thing on his mind would be two teenagers asking him questions.

"The Hale's were werewolves. What if… what if this Peter is the Alpha?" Stiles exclaimed, his hands making wild gestures through the air as he started pacing. I shook my head. It couldn't be. The man probably couldn't even leave the institute, not even to speak of transforming into the thing I'd seen yesterday. So that's what I told Stiles, but he insisted. And I gave in.

There went my plans for the weekend. Said plans being nothing. Because now I had a Saturday sneaking into a recovery institute and Sunday, which was going to be Scott's second full moon. Oh joy.

 **A/N: (Insert gasp here) Lorraine has one month left? This story wont end pretty, that's all I'm saying. Even though this was saddening to write, we did get some bonding between Stiles and Lorraine here. You might notice some small changes here and there throughout the story ;)**

 **Because next week will be very busy for me, the next chapter might be uploaded a day or two later than usual, sorry in advance for that.**

 **As always, I hoped you liked this chapter, until the next one, which will cover the episode Night School. (Which is one of my favourite episodes from season one, so I hope that I'll do it justice!)**

 **~Lilly**


	9. Chapter nine

**Chapter nine: Night School**

Stupid. Idiots. Stupid fucking idiots. I parked my car behind the school. Dad was (oh so conveniently) out of town, going to that man he'd visited during the full moon. I was lying on my bed, translating, when I got a text from Stiles.

" _Scott tried to call the Alpha, it came. Trapped inside the school, help."_

"Idiots." I muttered, entering the school through the backdoor. (the one used by the nightwatch) I put on my backpack properly in case I needed to run. Which was very likely. At first I had no clue where to look.

Then again, why look when you can just follow the scream that comes out of nowhere? I ran towards the source of the noise, spotting Scott and Stiles standing outside the boys' locker room, staring in horror through the window.

"Run!" I shouted. They turned around, startled. "Do I really have to repeat myself?" I hissed, running towards them and pulling them along, back to the backdoor. We just managed to run around the corner when the door the two had been standing had fell to the floor.

"How did you get in?" Stiles asked when we stopped to catch a breath.

"Backdoor." I said, pointing at it. Stiles and Scott ran towards it, tried and failed to open them. I ran over to them and helped pushing, but it didn't help much.

"It's blocked." Scott said, peeking through the gap between the doors. "Someone put a dumpster in front of it."

"Yeah, wonder who that could've been." I muttered. Were there any other exits? The front door… too obvious. A window? Too much noise to break it, the Alpha would rip our heads off before we'd even get out.

"Are there any other exits?" I asked. Scott shook his head.

"Actually… we might be able to go onto the roof." Stiles said. "Climb down the rainpipe."

"Sounds good to me." I said, and we started walking. We were going through the hallway with a large row of windows on the side when Scott suddenly stopped. The hairs on the back of my neck rose. Were we being watched? I turned towards the windows and cursed.

"Wha- oh." Stiles said, looking through the window as well. The Alpha was on the opposite side of the building, sitting on the roof. Shivers went down my spine, and my hand automatically reached into my jacket, subconsciously looking for my gun. Normal bullets wouldn't even slow it down, so I loaded my gun with wolfsbane-filled ones. Similar to the one Derek had been shot with, but a different kind.

Once I had a firm grip on the gun, I saw something shift from the corner of my eye. The Alpha was running towards us.

"Run!" I yelled at Scott and Stiles, who seemed to think that standing still and waiting to get ripped apart was the best action. "I'll hold him off." I said, taking out my gun as Scott ran off. Stiles stayed put, hesitating. I sent a quick glare at him, and then he ran too.

The sound of glass shattering filled my ears, soon followed by a deep growl. Not hesitating, I shot twice at the Alpha and turned around, running after the two boys.

We managed to get down to the storage rooms, where we stopped to catch our breath. It didn't take long for the Alpha to catch up on us. A low growling sound became louder and louder as he came closer.

"Stay still." I whispered, my heart thumping rapidly in my chest. When the growling became softer again, I cautiously let out a sigh. Time to run some more.

~o~

We didn't get far until the Alpha found us again. We were in the hallway of the storage rooms, pressed against a wall, and the Alpha was closing in on us.

Stiles put his hand in his pocket, causing his keys to clatter against each other.

"Don't." Scott hissed, but Stiles continued anyway. The growling became louder, angrier. Then Stiles threw the keys through an open door, the Alpha racing after it, into the room. Stiles ran towards the door, slamming it shut.

"The desk!" he yelled, but I was already on it, pushing it in front of the door. Stiles and Scott smiled triumphantly at each other when it slammed its body against the door, but it didn't open.

"He cant't…" Scott said, letting out a laugh in disbelief. He and Stiles high-fived, but I wasn't as relieved as them.

"Oh he'll get out.." I said. "I'm not even sure if the wolfsbane has kicked in yet. It's strong, a door won't hold him." That wiped the smiles of their faces.

"Oh, please don't tell me that we have to run again." Stiles whined, leaning against the wall as he tried to catch his breath. I let out a laugh.

"Too bad sweetie. But if we do it fast enough, we might just get to the front entrance without getting ripped to shreds."

~o~

We almost made it to the front entrance when we heard Allison calling for Scott. Oh joy.

"Did you tell her to come?" I asked Scott, who shook his head, frowning in confusion. Great, just what we need. An Argent involved. "Call her, ask her where she is." Stiles took out his phone and called Allison.

"Where are you?" he asked, pausing as Allison answered. "Yes, it's Stiles, now where exactly are you?" Pause. "Get to the lobby." he said, hanging up and turning right, walking towards the lobby. When we got there, Allison was already standing there.

"Why did you come here?" Scott asked, eyes scanning her from tip to toe to make sure she was okay.

"Your text…" Allison said, showing him her phone. Scott looked at it with a frown. "Why do I get the feeling that you didn't send this text?"

"He didn't." I said, wanting to get out of here. "Did you come with your car?"

"Jackson drove me." Allison said, a small frown forming on her face.

"Jackson's here?" Stiles said, groaning when Allison nodded.

"And Lydia." she added. As if on que, the two people in question entered the lobby. Lydia looking beyond annoyed, and Jackson mostly worried. And a bit annoyed.

"Finally." Lydia said, looking at Scott in annoyance. "Can we go now?" Allison nodded at her, about to walk to the door when there came a thump from the ceiling, followed by heavy footsteps. We all looked up in terror, Allison and Scott's hands intertwining. I got over the shock rather quickly, realising that we couldn't just stand there.

"Run, you fools!" I yelled, heading for the stairs. Luckily we all made it out before the ceiling gave way and the Alpha crashed down into the lobby.

An angry growl and an occasional crash against the lockers followed us as we ran through the main hallway, towards the exit.

"We're not gonna make it!" Lydia yelled in fear. I looked around and turned right, into the cafeteria. Once Scott ran in as last, he closed the doors and locked them.

"Help me barricade the door." he told Jackson as he began to move a table in front of the door.

"Scott, not here." Stiles said. I turned around and saw him staring at the giant windows that made up for most of the wall. Oh that's not good.

"Scott, what was that?" Allison said, panting.

"What came out of the ceiling?" Lydia asked, her wide eyes going from Scott to me.

"Will you just help me?" Scott yelled, moving a vending machine in front the door instead of the table. Were they really this stupid?

"Guys, could you just listen?" Stiles yelled, trying to get above the noise of tables and chairs moving. None of the rest did listen, instead they kept on barricading the door.

"That barricade isn't going to do much if the entire wall is made of glass!" I yelled, growing frustrated. But they still didn't listen. I let out a groan and reached into my jacket, taking out my second gun filled with normal bullets. Stiles stared at it with wide eyes, but I just patted him on the back before firing the gun into the air. The Alpha knew where we were anyway, so why not. Allison let out a small scream, whilst Jackson stared at me in horror.

"How many guns do you have?" he yelled. I rolled my eyes at him. He should see our collection.

"Nice barricade, dipshit, now what are we going to do about…" I pointed at the windows with my gun.

"The twenty foot wall of windows?" Stiles filled in.

"Crap." Jackson muttered.

"Can someone please explain what's happening because I'm freaking out and I'd like to know why." Allison begged, looking at Scott for help. He opened his mouth, but couldn't bring out a proper word.

"Tell you what, explaining later, not getting killed first." I said, turning to Stiles. "Way out?"

"In the kitchen there's a stairwell." Stiles said, pointing a finger to the door.

"But that one only goes up!" Scott protested.

"Better up than dead." Stiles and I said in sync. Despite the situation, we let out a short laugh, earning a few glares. We wiped the grins off our faces and made our way to the door, the rest following us up the stairs and into the hallway.

"And now?" Scott asked, looking around. He walked to the door of a classroom, trying to open it, but failing. Jackson walked after him and tries again. Meanwhile Lydia tried the door opposite of it, which opened. We all got inside and barricaded the door.

"Now would anyone be interested in telling me who is trying to kill us?" Lydia hissed, folding her arms.

"We don't know." I said, taking my backpack off my back and rummaging through it. I could've sworn I put mountain ash in here…

"Why were you at school then?" Jackson asked. I instantly rolled my eyes, but that seemed to be more of a reaction to Jackson speaking rather than what he said. I looked at Scott and nudged my head towards Jackson, telling him to answer the question.

"We, ehh…" Scott said, looking at Stiles for help. He didn't seem too pleased with the fact that he had to come up with something, but he spoke up anyway.

"Wanted to pull a prank on coach. Then someone killed the janitor an-"

"Someone killed the janitor?" Allison exclaimed, eyes wide in horror.

"He just told you that." I mumbled, still going through my backpack. Allison ignored my comment, and instead looked at Scott, waiting for an answer. Instead it was Stiles who continued. That boy had some serious improvising skills.

"That thing, that crashed through the roof? We saw hi- it kill the janitor. Then it came after us." he said.

"But this was supposed to be over." Lydia said, shaking her head. "Your dad killed the mountain lion last night, right?" she asked, looking at Allison, who nodded. "Then who killed the janitor?"

"If we knew, we'd tell you alright?" I snapped, slamming my backpack on a table. "Now would you please stop interrogating us and help figure out a way to get out of here?" The room fell silent, but I doubt that it was because of my sudden outburst. The growling was back. And it was becoming louder. I held my breath, and Lydia placed a hand over her mouth to stop hers. A shadow passed behind the small window of the door. We waited for a while until we were sure it was gone.

Something about it was bothering me. He could've easily heard our hearts beating, or us talking. Which meant that he didn't want to kill us… perhaps...

"Jackson, how many people fit in your car?" Scott whispered.

"Five, maybe six if two people sit on someone's lap." he responded. Allison let out a scoff.

"Five? I barely fit in the back."

"Fine, we'll take my car." I said, about to put my gun with the normal bullets back into my jacket when I froze. "Ah crap."

"What crap?" Stiles asked, sounding worried.

"I shot him with the wrong bullet." I whispered. "Probably just pissed him off." Apparently I didn't whisper quietly enough, because Allison flipped out.

"You shot it?" she asked, her eyes wide.

"Yeah, only with a blank." I lied. "I just pissed it off more." Not a lie. I sat down on the table and pinched the bridge of my nose with my hand. "Anyway, how do we get to the car?"

"There's stairs leading to the roof right there." Scott said, pointing at a blue door in the left corner of the classroom. "We can go down the drainpipe, directly into the car park." Stiles nodded and walked towards the door, mumbling something about firesteps as he crouched down to look at the handle, prodding and pulling it.

"It's locked. Deadbolt." he said eventually said, getting up.

"The janitor has the key, right?" Scott asked.

"Better question: why don't we just call the police?" Lydia said, taking out her phone.

"Lydia hold o-" I didn't get to finsih my sentence, as Lydia was already calling the number.

"Yes, hi? We're at the Beacon Hills highschool and the-" she stopped abruptly, a small frown on her face, and lowered her phone soon after. "She hung up on me. Said she got a warning of a prank call from the school and that they're going to trace my cell if I call again." Stiles shook his head.

"No, they never do that. They first send someone to your house."

"Then you call your good-for-nothing dad and tell him to get someone with a gun and decent aim down here."

"Hey!" I exclaimed. I had a more than decent aim, thanks. Also, he couldn't talk shit about Stiles' dad like that.

"No." Stiles said. Of course, he knew what the Alpha was capable of and he probably didn't want to see his dad get ripped to pieces. Understandable, really.

"I'll call my dad." I said, taking out my phone and dialing his number. Voicemail. Of course. "Dad, were at the school, there's some crazy… thing chasing us and I'd really appreciate you calling the police." I hung up and shook my head. "Voicemail."

"That's it, I'm call-" Jackson reached for Stiles' phone, which he was holding in his hand. Instead of letting him take it, Stiles punched him in the face.

"Damn!" I said, a smile forming on my face.

"Lorraine!" Lydia scolded, making her way over to Jackson to see if he was okay. I rolled my eyes, but froze when I saw Stiles walking to the corner of the room, phone to his ear. I jumped off the table and made my way over to him.

"If you're dragging him into this, he needs to know what's going on." I said. We've had this before, and it was always better if the parents knew. Especially if they were the sheriff.

"I- damnit. Hey, dad. ...And it's your voicemail. Listen, you need to call me back like, right now. Were at the school,okay. Were… at the school." he said, shaking his head as he hung up. "How am I even going to start explaining what's going on?" he whispered.

"Show him Scott, then he has to believe you." I whispered back. He shook his head a little at that. I wanted to convince him, but now wasn't the time.

"Alright, I'm going to get the key." Scott said, walking to the door, where Allison stopped him.

"Are you serious?" she asked. Her look basically screamed 'if you say you're serious I'm going to bash your head in because you plan is stupid', but Scott didn't seem to really catch that one.

"It's the best plan we've got, we need that key to get out of here." he said.

"You can't go out there unarmed." Allison whispered. And she had a fair point. But I

had a point forty-five. I took the one with the wolfsbane bullets out and held it up in the air. Scott reached out to take it, but I pulled it back.

"Woah, I'm not handing out guns here. I'm coming with you." I said. Was he really thinking that I'd give him a gun? Does he even know how to reload it? Or aim? Or how to not shoot himself?

"Eh, no, you're not going with him." Stiles said as if it were obvious. I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Aren't I? Remember, I still have the gun." I said, pointing it in his direction. Not aiming, just pointing. Which was enough to make him shut up.

"And what about Scott? He doesn't have a weapon." Allison said. Scott looked around and took a long stick the teachers used to point at things on the board. Everybody just stared at him.

"What? It's better than nothing." he said. I just rolled my eyes and snatched it from his hand.

"You're going to need something else. I said, looking at the cupboard full of chemicals he was standing next to. "I'm no expert, but don't some of those burn your skin off?" I asked, looking at Lydia for confirmation.

"There's enough in there to make a self-igniting molotov cocktail." she said, making everyone but me stare at her in awe. "What? I read it somewhere." she said, shrugging it off.

"Lydia, you're amazing." I said, a grin forming on my face. "And I think that our Jackson dearest can get into the cupboard easily, can't you?" I asked. Jackson rolled his eyes and shoved his elbow into the glass door of the cupboard, shattering it.

~o~

Lydia was working on the cocktail, Allison and Jackson helping her whilst the three of us stood in the corner.

"We get the key and go straight back, no detours and being the hero, understood?" I said. Scott nodded, but Stiles still seemed against all of it.

"Can't you just shoot the lock?" he asked, growing more frustrated.

"I doubt that it would work, and it would create too much noise." I said, shaking my head. That was only half a lie.

"Oh, and going out there like a walking buffet isn't going to get you killed?" Stiles exclaimed.

"If I have to, I'll hold him off."

"He'll kill you!"

"And what difference would that make, huh?" I snapped. "Does it matter if I die now or if I die in four weeks? The only difference is that I won't die withering away on a hospital bed."

Stiles fell silent, but stared over my shoulder with wide eyes. I turned around and saw the rest staring at me with expressions of shock on their faces.

"You're… dying?" Scott said. I let out a sigh and had to keep myself from letting out a groan. "Wh- how?"

"Cancer." I lied. "Dad brought me here to see a specialist, but he can't help me either. Can we please talk about this when we're not being chased by a psycho killer?" Everyone kept staring at me in silence. "Just finish the damn cocktail and get this over with." I said, taking out my phone to check if dad had left a message yet, and because I didn't want to see the stares they were giving me. Anyway, my inbox was empty.

~o~

Once Lydia finished the cocktail, she put a cork on the flask and gave it to Scott, who thanked her. We were about to leave when Allison stepped in front of us, shaking her head.

"No, no, you can't do this." she said, tears in her eyes. "You can't… go out there!"

"We can't just sit here waiting for Stiles' dad to check his messages." Scott said. "Someone needs to do something."

"You could die, don't you get that?" Allison said, stepping forward. "He's killed three people." she said, pointing at the door.

"And we're next if we don't do something." Scott said, placing his hands on her shoulders and moving her to the side. "Somebody has to."

I thought we were finally leaving the room when she stepped in front of us yet again, making me roll my eyes. Oh come on!

"Scott, just stop." she pleaded.

"Standing right here." I mumbled, looking down at my feet as she continued talking.

"Remember, when you told me I had a tell?" she asked. "You can tell when I'm lying? Well, you're a horrible liar Scott. And you've been lying all night." Okay, not true. Sure, I lied a few times, but Scott only didn't tell some small facts. Like how this killer was actually a werewolf. He didn't lie. Just… forgot to mention a small detail?

"Please don't leave." Allison said. "Please." Scott stared at her for a while, before shaking his head.

"Lock the door behind us." he said, putting his hand on the door handle when Allison pulled him back. And then pulled him into a kiss. I stood awkwardly by the door as they made out. When they were finished, Scott walked over to the door.

"Any chance I'm getting a kiss?" I asked, looking around the room. I let out a laugh at the confused and flustered looks I got. "Guess not. Maybe later." I said, winking at Stiles before leaving the room. Not before managing to get a glimpse at his now red cheeks. I could've hit myself in the face. Way to go, Lorraine. As we walked down the hallway, I started humming a song. Scott didn't really appreciate it.

"Can you keep it down?" he whispered, looking around warily. I shook my head.

"Scott, he knows exactly where we are and what we're about to do." Scott's eyes widened at that. "He has even more powerful hearing than you do." I think Scott wasn't sure whether or not to relax at that. On one hand, we didn't have to be quiet. On the other hand, the Alpha could just go to the others and kill them. Assuming Scott came to that conclusion as well, I spoke up. I was fairly certain I'd figured the Alpha's plan out by now.

"He won't kill them. He wants you to do it."

That didn't exactly comfort him either.

"Then why are you coming with me?" he asked.

"To make sure you don't kill them. And trust me, by the time the Alpha uses it's powers, you'll want to. Scott froze on the spot as he realised.

"You're not here to protect me." he said.

"I'm her to put you down if you try to kill one of your friends." I said, nodding. "How's the scent?" I asked casually, as if I hadn't just basically threatened him.

"That way." Scott mumbled, turning right. We remained silent for a while.

"Will you?" he then asked, out of nowhere.

"Will I what?"

"Kill me. If I try to kill them." he said, stopping and turning towards me. I bit the inside if my lip and nodded. I'd have to. In response, he nodded as well. "Good."

Now that I hadn't expected, but I was glad he said it. He was selfless, and not because it would be the "right thing to do". He was being selfless because he cared. Little did he know, but that night, Scott McCall earned himself some serious respect.

Not that I was going to tell him that.

~o~

Sooner than later, we realised that the Alpha must've moved the body. Which meant that it wanted Scott to be somewhere. When we entered the gym, I got chills all over.

"Are you sure it's here?" I whispered to Scott, who nodded and walked towards the bleachers. Great.

"Stay there." he said, walking in. From where I was standing, I couldn't see where the janitor was, but when Scott suddenly stopped and looked up after wiping his cheek, I had a good idea where he would be.

"Just get the keys and go." I warned him, an uneasy feeling in my stomach.

"What?" he called back.

"Ju-" a sharp pain shot through my head, and before I knew what was happening, I was lying on the floor. A metal clanking sounded through the empty hall, and I couldn't see Scot anywhere. I pushed myself off the floor and stood up, immediately making my vision blurry.

"Scott." I tried to yell, but it came out weak. I just hoped that his hearing was good enough to pick it up. The bleachers were closing, and I had no clue what to do. I stood there in shock, when just before the bleachers closed completely, Scott jumped out, the flask and keys in his hand.

"You okay?" he asked, running towards me.

"He's here." I said. It must be the Alpha, what else could've knocked me out? Scott turned around and stepped sideways, allowing me to see the Alpha creeping towards us, growling. It was huge, with bulky muscles and black hair partially covering his grey skin.

"Come get me." Scott said, getting ready to throw the flask. I took out my gun, making sure it was the wolfsbane one, and fired just after Scott threw the flask.

We'd expected the Alpha to catch fire. Instead, the flask just shattered apart, the content falling against the Alpha, but not catching flame. The shot did seem to hurt it though, but not enough to stop it. Instead, it came running at us. I managed to fire two more bullets at it before it swept me away, sending me towards the door, sliding over the floor. By the time I got up, the Alpha was on top of Scott.

Making the quick judgement that I couldn't take on the both of them, (Or even the Alpha alone) and that the Alpha wouldn't kill Scott, I ran out of the gym, back towards the chemistry classroom. Well, I say run. It was more of a stumbling. I think I even puked once or twice.

I managed to get to about one-third of the way when a monstrous roar echoed through the school. Knowing I wouldn't have much time, I started running, this time managing not to fall. I almost made it to the classroom, I was in the hallway, when the Alpha appeared in front of me.

I reached for my wolfsbane gun, but my hand was empty when I withdrew it from my jacket.

"Oh you bastard." I said. The bitch took my gun! The Alpha let out an amused growl, if that was even there was a human deep down there, I guess it was. I let out a sigh and threw my hands up in the air.

"So? What are you waiting for?" I said. "Kill me, then." The Alpha started creeping towards me when the door to the chemistry class opened, and Stiles ran out.

"What are you doing?" I yelled at him. "Go back, lock the door!" I took out my other gun and started shooting at the Alpha, effectively distracting it. Stiles just stood there, frozen. "If you don't go back now I'll shoot you myself." I threatened, pointing the gun at him. The Alpha wouldn't kill him, not now at least. Scott would be here soon to do it for him. When Stiles still didn't move, I fired my gun, the bullet hitting the wall behind Stiles.

"Go." I said, keeping an eye on the Alpha. He didn't seem all that interested in Stiles. "Or I won't miss next time." I heard a door shut, and when I looked over, Stiles had indeed gone back inside. Or someone had pulled him in. That was the good thing.

The bad thing was that in my moment of distraction, the Alpha had hit my head again, this time knocking me out completely.

~o~

Getting knocked out in a school and waking up outside of it… it's an interesting thing. Because you were either so drunk you can't remember going out of the building or someone took you out whilst you were unconscious. The latter described my situation best. The question was why.

"Hey, hey, Lorraine." a male voice said, followed by someone shaking me a little. "Wake up."

I slowly opened my eyes and winced as someone shone a flashlight into them.

"Alright, stay with me, the ambulance is on its way."

Slowly my eyes adjusted to the light, allowing me to see the person in front of me properly. It was the sheriff.

"Where are the others?" I asked, trying to move but finding it too painful.

"We're looking for them right now." he said. I nodded and slowly let my eyes close. When the sheriff noticed, he took my hand and squeezed it.

"Stay with me, alright?" he said, waiting for me to open my eyes before continuing. "Just focus on my voice and stay awake. Do you know how you ended up here?" My mind went back to what I could remember. Which was, at that time, almost reaching the chemistry room and then nothing. So I shook my head.

"Okay, the ambulance is here, you probably have a concussion, they're going to take you to the hospital, alright?' he waited for me to nod before letting go of my hand and stepping away. Seconds later, I was carried onto a stretcher and into the ambulance.

~o~

Lucky for me, my stay at the hospital didn't last too long. They only checked for a concussion and didn't bother to do anything else, since it was a busy night and there had been a few accidents that needed more attention. After an hour or two, I was good to go with the warning that someone had to wake me up every few hours that night to check if I was alright.

So, I got to go home. When I did, I didn't find my dad, but four other people waiting for me in the living room. I don't think I need to say that I was surprised.

"Ehm hi?" I said, staring back at the people in the room. Stiles, Scott, Lydia, and Allison. "Is this an intervention or something?" I tried to joke, but it didn't seem like they thought it was appropriate.

"Are you... okay?" Scott asked, looking at me worriedly. Actually, all of them were doing that.

"I accidentally told you I was dying, then I saw Scott almost die, and then I almost died myself or that's at least what I think happened because I can't remember as I have a concussion. Does any of that sound okay to you?" I asked, letting out a sigh afterwards. "What happened wasn't okay, but I'm fine."

"Well you don't look fine." Lydia said. "I mean, you're way too pale for that shirt."

"I suffered some blood loss!" I objected, though checking if she was right from the corner of my eye. I was pale. But I looked fine in black… right?

"We just wanted to check up on you, that's all." Allison said, trying to diffuse the situation. Which didn't really help since I knew that she was an Argent. Okay, I'm judging her without really knowing her, go ahead and judge me if you will. My experience with her family just wasn't too great, alright?

"Well, you've checked, so could you please leave?"

Silence.

I let out a huff and sat down in my father's chair, opposite of the couch they were sitting on.

"What do you want me to say?" I asked, putting my hands up in the air.

"Well let's start with the truth." Lydia said, tilting her head at me.

"Fine." I said, glaring at her. "I'm dying. There's nothing you can do about it, but right now, I'm fine. Are we done here?"

"Aren't you scared?" Allison asked, tears in her eyes. Oh here we go. The last thing I need. An Argent crying for me. Truth is, I was terrified. But I didn't need them to know that and I certainly didn't want them to know it.

"What I am, is tired. Can you all please go home?" I said, standing up and opening the door for them. They weren't mad at me, I could see it on their faces. They should be mad. I was acting like a dickhead, and they weren't mad at me. Instead, they felt pity. And honestly, I didn't know which one would be worse.

They all left, except Stiles, who asked if it was okay to go to the toilet before he left and then not actually leaving when he was finished. Instead, we sat down on the couch together and talked.

"Are you going to tell Scott?" he asked, looking at and playing with his hands.

"What difference would it make?" I said with a shrug. "Have you thought of telling your father?" Stiles nodded, but I could see on his face what decision he'd made. "Stiles, you really should tell him. If he doesn't know, he won't be able to figure out anything that's happening, he could even help us catch the Alpha. And imagine all the cases that he'd be able to solve."

Even my small speech couldn't change his mind, so I knew what would: a situation where he's forced to. Possibly with either his or his father's life at stake. But who knew when that'd occur?

"Speaking of the Alpha, did this Jacob guy find anything?" he asked, making me roll my eyes.

"It's Jason, not Jacob. And he said that he couldn't find any other werewolves in Beacon Hills. There could still be one, though." Stiles nodded at that.

"We should still check out Derek's uncle." Stiles said. I let out a deep sigh. The man has been completely catatonic for six years or so. No way he'd be strong enough to go out there. But no, Stiles insisted.

We moved on from the supernatural topics, and started talking about basically anything else: lacrosse, Jackson being a dick, games, who would be able to pull the best prank on Coach, and so on. I got more and more drowsy, until I eventually fell asleep. Several hours later, someone woke me up.

"Hey, Lorraine." Stiles said, tapping my shoulder. "You need to wake up a bit." I was soon sitting upright on the couch.

"What's wrong?" I asked, for about the third time.

"Someone needs to wake you up, remember? Your dad asked me to do it. Said it was too late for me to go home all by myself. Oh, and he was the one who let us in, by the way. He was upstairs." I nodded, still a bit drowsy. Usually, I could be up and about within a minute. Now? Oh I could fall asleep within seconds. Which I nearly did, several times. Each time Stiles had to put his hand under my head to tilt it back up.

"Just a few minutes, alright?" he said, unlocking his phone and shining the light into my eyes. That did the trick. For about a minute. We ended up in a limbo of me falling asleep and him waking me up, that ended when the few minutes were over and I could go back to sleep.

~o~

Apparently, he'd woken me up a few more times that night, but I couldn't remember any of them. When I woke up in the morning, all by myself, I saw him lying fast asleep. With his legs on my dad's chair, and his face lying on the floor, mouth wide open. I had to stop myself from laughing at the sight. Figuring he had stayed awake most of the night, I let him sleep and went to the kitchen, where I found a note from dad:

 _Went to check Jason's research on the Alpha, going to work at the institute afterwards, I'll be back for dinner. -D_

Typical, always double checking. It wouldn't surprise me if he'd checked on Stiles last night to see if he checked on me. I turned on the coffee maker and started making breakfast, in my head already making plans for tonight's full moon.

 **A/N: That was one long chapter... 6k! Anyway, as I thought, I wasn't able to write last week so this chapter is up one day later than usual (sorry).**

 **I want to take a moment to thank everyone who followed and favourited this story, or all of you who are just reading it without doing that, it makes me really happy!**

 **The next couple of chapters will be... a bit "messy" compared to the series. A lot of things didn't happen because of Lorraine being there (Derek being a fugitive, for example) and some things she just doesn't witness or doesn't care enough about to tell anything about. Which is another thing: she is a fairly unreliable storyteller. Don't be surprised if there's suddenly something that she didn't tell you about before. This is just how she is, but it will get better. Anyway, so that's why the episodes that should follow this one are kind of mashed together so I could form proper chapters, especially in the next two.**

 **Speaking of the next chapter: We've got a cranky Scott, a drunk Stiles, and Lorraine who has to deal with all of it: aka fun!**

 **As always, thanks for reading, and until the next chapter!**

 **~Lilly**


	10. Chapter ten

**Chapter ten: Lunatic**

You gotta love the moon. It provides us with light, brings together all the satanic nutjobs, provides us with tides, and once a month it turns a few people into homicidal hairballs of death. One of those said hairballs being Scott McCall.

Now, I'm familiar with experiencing homicidal tendencies each month, but Scott was a real dickhead. It wouldn't take long for anyone to figure that one out, and it certainly didn't take long for me. You see, Stiles had texted me to ask if I could pick him and Scott up, as they were getting drunk.

Why, you ask? Allison dumped Scott. Even though he hadn't technically been lying to her last night at school, she "didn't know if she could trust him." Any other occasion, I'd be glad. Hunter and werewolf couples generally didn't end well. But now… not a good timing. Since Allison was Scott's anchor, and she was gone… well there wasn't much preventing him from "wolfing out."

Anyway, text from Stiles:

 _Heeeyu Lora, could u pick us uop now? Thankss Xx_

I couldn't help but smile at my screen as I read the message. He was so drunk. I got in my car and drove it all the way to the woods, using Stiles' directions. (Which he'd sent before he got drunk, thankfully) Once there, I saw a small fire burning and walked towards it, since Stiles said they'd be there.

"Hey Lora!" Stiles yelled as I walked out into the field. "We were just talking about you! You know, you ar-" Scott slapped his hand in front of Stiles' mouth before he could finish the sentence.

"Let's go." he said, first getting off the ground himself before pulling Stiles off. Which was a good thing, I don't think that he could stand on his own feet for too long.

"You don't seem to drunk, Scott." I said. Oh I knew full and well that werewolves couldn't get drunk, not like humans, but I wanted to test him, see how he was doing.

"I'm not." he said. "A little help here?" he asked, pointing at Stiles. I moved over and put one of Stiles' arms over my shoulder whilst Scott took the other. It didn't take us too long to get Stiles to my car, thanks to Scott's strength.

"Oh, we goin' home now? Cool." Stiles said as we practically threw him into the back of the car.

"I don't know why I let you two go out." I said, shaking my head as I closed the door. "I'm the one who's gonna have to deal with a drunk Stiles now." I said as I got into the car.

"You don't have to lock me up again." Scott, who was already in the seat next to me, said. "You said so yourself, I had full control last full moon." I let out a scoff at that.

"Yeah, sure. That was after the Alpha let you out of its control. Who knows what he might make you do, Scott. You could kill someone." I saw him opening his mouth to protest. "You could kill Allison." I said before he could. "The Alpha probably doesn't like the Argents. Getting you to kill them for him is an option he will likely go for." Well that shut him up. He still looked grumpy as hell, but it shut him up. So, with Stiles' drunk ass in the back and a moody werewolf sitting next to me, I started the car, put on some music, and drove us to my place.

~o~

"No, but this full moon is different, you don't need to tie me up." Scott said. We were standing next to the shift room, and he was refusing to go in.

"Yeah it's different indeed. You just lost your anchor and are about to go rabid, so…" I pointed at the open door. "In." Scott glared at me, his eyes slowly starting to glow.

"I. said. That. I'm. fine." he said, a low growl in his voice. He set one step forward, so I set one back. "You really think that I'm just letting you lock me up? Like a dog?"

"Well no." I said, walking backwards as he walked towards me. "Quite honestly, I was kind of expect-" He ran forward and grabbed me by the shoulders, lifting me up in the air and throwing me towards the wall. The air in my lungs was pushed out and my vision blurred for a moment. With coughs and gasps, I managed to catch my breath.

"Nice mat placement." I said, standing up and looking at Stiles, who'd just finished the line of mountain ash halfway the room to keep Scott in. He looked at the place where I'd hit the wall, which was about two feet from where he'd put up a mat against it.

"Oh…" he said, wincing. "S-"

An ear piercing growl interrupted him. I rolled my eyes and looked over to Scott.

"Really? That's what you're going for?" I asked, walking towards the line of ash and inspecting it. "Perfect… ish. A bit skewed." Thought that was to be expected, as Stiles was still struggling to walk in a straight line. I walked towards the wall. In case of these kind of scenarios, we installed a screen to divide the room in two. It also blocked some of the noise Scott would be making. Once I got that all set up, I turned to Stiles.

"Scale of one to ten, how drunk are you?" I asked, eyeing him. He let out a chuckle.

"Am I drunk?" he asked. He let out a laugh when I tried to hide the smile on my face. "I am drunk!" he cheered, throwing his hands up in the air, which caused him to lose balance and fall over. I shook my head at him. I had a long night ahead of me.

~o~

You know what's even easier than taking candy from a baby? Winning from a half-drunk Stiles. Of course, I'd been forcing him to sober up, and Scott's occasional death threats helped with that, but he was just plain bad at poker.

"So what's the price for this round?" I asked, dividing the chips between us. "I've already got two free meals and a week's worth of you driving me to school. I doubt you've got anything else to offer me." I said, smirking at him.

"Tell you what." he said, taking his chips and counting them. "If I win this round, you're going to the formal." I opened my mouth to protest, but he wasn't done yet. "With me. So you…" he said, reaching out and tapping my nose with his finger, "can have at least one fun school party, and I can tell the jocks in the lacrosse team to suck it because you'll be going with me."

I rolled my eyes at him and hoped that he wasn't sober enough yet to notice me blushing. At least it felt like I was blushing. "And what if I win?" I asked, taking the deck of cards and shuffling it.

"Then you... " he said, tapping on his legs with his fingers. "Get… fifty bucks." I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Eighty."

"Deal."

I was lucky to have good poker face, because the round we both decided to go all in I got a pair of kings. That was the second-best starting hand for poker. I took the deck and laid down the last two cards, one of them a king.. Three of a kind. Not bad indeed. With a small smirk on my face, I turned my two cards around.

"Three kings." I said, letting out a laugh as I saw Stiles' pokerface drop to a look of disappointment. "Pay up." I said, holding out my hand to him. Instead of money, he put his two cards in my hand.

"Royal flush." he said, turning them around. "Better go buy that dress." My mouth fell open, I'd completely overlooked that option. With a huff, I let the cards fall to the floor. Stiles let out a victorious laugh.

"Shut up." I said, but soon I was laughing as well. He was so proud that he'd tricked me, and I had no doubt he would rub it in my face later.

"Can you let me out now?" Scott yelled, rather angrily, from behind the divider. I let out a groan as the cheery (and partially drunk) mood of the room suddenly disappeared. A long night indeed.

~o~

By the end of the night, Stiles was all sobered up, Scott had finally shut up, and I was exhausted. Once the sun rose, we let him go home (he still wasn't really happy with us), and Stiles and I went to sleep for a few hours (which turned into twelve) before we went to see Derek's uncle.

~o~

Despite Stiles' protests, I'd called Derek on our ride over. It was his uncle after all, and he had the right to know what we were about to do. That's why, when we arrived, the werewolf in question was waiting for us outside.

"Is there any way it could be him?" he asked as soon as we got out of the car. I just shrugged, I didn't know what he was capable of.

"You'd think that if he has finished healing, he'll do more than just come out and kill people at night only to sit here all day." I said, eyeing the hospital. Derek nodded at that, and then proceeded to guide us to the hospital, to his uncle's room. It was a standard hospital room, with a man in a wheelchair in the corner. If you'd walked by, it would've looked like he was just staring out of the window. But if you walked in, around him, and looked at his face…

"Oh that's…" Stiles said, his nose scrunching up at the sight of it. Half of the man's face, Peter, was covered in burn scars.

"How long has he been like this?" I asked, staring into his eyes. That's weird. For half a second, I could've sworn I saw them…

"Six years." Derek said. He was standing near the door and it didn't look like he was coming any closer.

"Can he hear us?" I asked, tilting my head. Something about him looked familiar. Then again, so did a lot in this town. I'd probably met him when I was last here, that's all.

"We don't know. He's never responded." Derek said, growing impatient. I crouched down, studying the man for any changes.

"Do you mind if I try something?" I asked, looking over Peter's shoulder at Derek, who nodded. I then placed my index finger under Peter's fingers. "Okay, this is already weird. Listen, if you can hear me, move your fingers. Or one, just a bit. I'll notice." We waited for a while, but nothing happened. Just when I was about to give up and leave, his finger moved down.

"Okay… good." I said, my eyes wide. "Was there anyone else at the fire who survived? Move down your finger for a yes, move it up for a no."

All of a sudden, his head snapped towards me, making me jump up. I wanted to jump away from him too, but he had his hand gripped tightly around my wrist.

"Get him out of here!" I yelled at Derek, who grabbed Stiles by his arm and literally threw him out of the room. "Not like that you dic-" Something sharp pierced through my neck, and I could hear Derek yelling out "No" before everything went black.

The black became smoke, and under the smoke there was fire. From that fire came a heat so hot I could've sworn I felt it melting a part of my face. In front of me were people, in the fire, screaming. But there was no way I could reach them, I would die.

Then my view shifted. It was as if I was looking around in confusion. Then I started running. My feet were burning, and I nearly got crushed by a piece of ceiling falling down one me, but I kept running. And then I stopped. Above all the screaming, was one voice, weaker than the rest. Close to it, someone, a child, crying.

The view shifted again as I ran towards the sound. Under a long piece of wooden ceiling lay a woman I instantly recognised as my mother. Next to it, a small girl with blonde hair sat, crying. Said girl being me.

"It's going to be okay, sweetie." my mother whispered. She then looked up at me. By now I'd figured out it was actually Peter, and I was in his memories. "Get her out." she said. I- Peter, actually, ran towards them and pulled me away from my mother, taking me outside. He ran for a while until we were away from the house, there he set me down.

"Shh, shh." he said, putting a finger on my mouth in attempt to stop me from crying. Then his head snapped up, scanning our surroundings. There, in the distance, he could see three people running away from the house, carrying gasoline tanks in their hands.

I "woke up" gasping for air on the hospital floor. Peter stood next to me, with a very pissed off Derek glaring at him. I opened my mouth to ask so many questions, but I couldn't. Apparently, Peter figured that out.

"Your father took you to another pack, their Alpha erased your memory. He didn't want you to remember it, wanted you to believe your mother died fast and peaceful. And he was right to." he said, crouching down so he could get on eye level with me. "But I needed you to know this for you to understand what I'm about to tell you. Both of you."

Well, whatever he wanted to tell me, he didn't get a chance to do it, as Derek took him by the collar and threw him out of the window, Derek running after him to beat him up some more. Around the same time, Stiles walked into the room, blood dripping from a cut in his cheek.

"Are you okay?" we asked at the same time. We smiled and both nodded.

"His nurse, she was helping him." he said closing the door behind him. "I, ehh, knocked her out. She's in a janitor's closet, all locked up." he said, showing me the keys.

"I'm impressed." I said, standing up. Pain shot through my neck and I instinctively reached for it, covering my hand with blood. "That's lovely." I said, wiping it off on the bed sheets. I looked over to Stiles, who was looking at me with wide eyes.

"Oh crap, yeah I didn't tell you that." I said, realising. "Basically, alpha's, or powerful betas, can share memories by putting their claws into a person's neck. He showed me the fire." I said, turning around to look out of the window, where Derek and his uncle were beating each other up. Since I knew they weren't going to kill each other (Derek would try and fail though), I let them be for the moment.

"And?" Stiles asked, walking over to me. "What did you see?"

"My mother." I said, my voice cracking. "She- we. We were in the fire. She died, Peter pulled me out. Dad took me to an alpha who took my memories from that day. I think they got it wrong a bit, erased other parts too." I said, wiping tears from my eyes. "Sorry. I jus-"

"It's okay." he said, placing a hand on my shoulder rather awkwardly. "It's okay."

We stood there, watching the fight until the Hale's calmed down a bit. Well, Peter was now screaming, but it was safe for us to come out and join them.

"Do you have any idea what it was like for me, those six years?" Peter yelled. "Slowly healing, cell by cell. And all that time knowing-" he stopped and turned towards me. "You saw them, right? In my memory, you saw the people in the woods?" I just nodded. "They weren't family. They set the house on fire."

"But the reports said that it was an electrical failure." Stiles said, frowning. The two of us were standing behind Derek, should Peter try and attack us.

"I only killed those who were responsible." Peter simply said, and something in me clicked.

"The bus driver?" I asked.

"He got assigned the fire, worked at an insurance company." Derek explained. "He covered up the evidence of arson."

"The store clerk…" Stiles said.

"Arrested for arson." Peter said.

"Those two people who went missing last night?" I asked, earning a look from Stiles. "Hey, you were too drunk to poker in the beginning, I had to do something." I said, shrugging.

"They were the ones who set the house on fire." Derek said.

"Alright then, but there must be someone left." I said. "You aren't done yet." Peter nodded at that.

"There is… one person. The brains behind the entire plan." he said. "Kate Argent. Just her, no one else."

I let out a scoff as I realised what he was doing.

"You want our help." I said, staring at him with wide eyes. Next to me, Stiles' mouth fell open.

"Wh- wait what? Are you insane?" he said, looking at me. I took a deep breath, but he wasn't having any of it. "No." he said, shaking his head. "Na-ah, no way."

"She killed dozens of innocent people." I said. "Who knows what she'll do next. I've heard about her, Stiles, she has no code, no morals." he still wasn't convinced. "She killed my mother. I will at least need to talk to my dad." That calmed him down enough. I turned back towards Peter. "We're leaving. Right now." I said, taking Stiles' hand and walking towards his car.

"Was that really the smartest thing to do?" he whispered.

"No clue." I said, letting go of his hand and getting in the car. Stiles sighed, walked around the car and took his place behind the steering wheel.

"I know you're scared." he said, turning his keys and starting up the car. "You've always been scared. You're just better at hiding it now." I rolled my eyes.

"I'm not scared." I said.

"Listen, Lorraine, I know you, alright? And I know that you're scared, you're scared of Kate, you're scared of Peter, you're scared that you're going to die and you are terrified of what'll happen after you're gone. Because you and I both know that death wont happen to you, but the people around you." he said, his voice growing louder. "Now can you please drop the act, start showing the emotions I know you have, and I jus-" he stopped, letting out a sigh and calming himself down. "I want to have my friend back. You were so open, and we told each other everything and now I look at you, and I know it's you but you've shut your emotions off from the world and it's like you're not even you."

After he stopped speaking, we were silent. He was constantly casting glances at me, but I kept my eyes on the road.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" he asked.

"Stop the car." I said, unfastening my seatbelt.

"Wh- no!" he said, his head moving from me to the road, a panicked expression on his face.

"Stop it."

"Lorraine, you aren't seriously going to- don't!" he yelled as I opened my door. He slammed on the break, giving me the opportunity to jump out of the car. Not looking back, I started walking home. I didn't get far when Stiles caught up on me, placing a hand on my shoulder and turning me around.

"Look, I'm sorry." he said, but I didn't care. If he wanted emotion, he was going to get it.

"You asshole!" I spat, pushing him back. "Don't you think that I know what I'm doing? Did you really think it was necessary to go all 'shrink' on me? I have four weeks left, Stiles. What do you think is easier to get over? The death of someone who helped you protect his werewolf friend, but was kind of rude and emotionless, or one of your closest friends? Which one would be more difficult? Yes, I'm scared, it's called instinct. Yes, I'm worried, that way I can come up with backup plans and not get cocky." Tears were pouring down my cheeks by now, and I was probably giving half the neighbourhood a heart attack, but I didn't care. "Yes I've been acting like a bitch at times, and yes I'm doing it on purpose, and I did it because I didn't want to hurt anyone!"

My breathing was rapid, my sight was blurry because of the tears, and I felt like my head was about to explode. Taking a deep breath, I turned around and walked away again. I thought that I'd scared Stiles off with my rant, but apparently not, as again I felt a pair of hands pulling me back.

"I won't let you walk home alone." he said, one hand lowering to my wrist. "Just let me drop you off at home, please."

"Let me go!" I yelled, pulling my wrist out of his hand. He'd thought I would do that, as he used his other hand to grab my other wrist. I let out a gasp as an image flashed in front of my eyes.

" _Lydia!" Stiles yelled, running over the lacrosse field at school. I turned around and saw Lydia standing in the middle of the field, staring at Stiles. Behind her, Peter was running towards her, his teeth bare._

I didn't know that I'd closed my eyes, but when I opened them again I was heading towards Stiles' car.

"Put me down." I said, but my voice was weak, so it came out like a whisper.

"Nope." he said, though it sounded strained. Probably because he was carrying me. Talk about humiliating. I could walk just fine, thanks. I told him that, but it took so long for my brain to send signals to my mouth that by the time the words left my lips, he'd put me in the front seat.

"I'm sure you can." he said, closing the door and walking around the car before getting in. He started the car and waited for me to put on my seatbelt, which took forever.

Even though he'd acted calm when I was yelling at him, judging by the tapping of his fingers against the steering wheel, the speed at which he was driving, and the hurt (though concerned) expression on his face, he was pretty shaken.

~o~

"She was standing in the field, Peter was running towards her from behind, and I think he was about to bite her." I recalled my… my… whatever it was, again to dad. Stiles had insisted on staying until I was alright again (even though I had insisted that I was) and we'd explained what we now knew. And more so, what I now knew. I was a little mad at dad, but I understood his actions.

"We can't help him." dad said, shaking his head. "If we help Peter kill Kate, a war will burst out between hunters and protectors."

"Then what can we do?" I asked. "We can't just let Kate get away with this." "And we can't let Peter get away with killing those people connected to the fire either. He's always been… odd, but that fire really messed him up."

"Wonder how that can be." I mumbled, earning a glare from dad. I instantly looked down at my hands, remembering just why he'd let my memories be erased.

"So what's going to happen now?" Stiles asked. Dad stared at his hands, thinking for a while before letting out a sigh.

"We do what we're supposed to do." he said, looking at the both of us. "Protect those who can't protect themselves. And not just Lydia." The meaningful look he gave me was enough. Rage boiled up inside me.

"You want to protect Kate?" I said in disbelief. "Are you insane?"

"Forgiving is an important part of being a protector." dad said, staying calm. "And it's what your mother would've wanted. Always choose the peaceful way, and if there isn't any then you make one." a faint smile appeared on his face. "That's what she used to say all the time."

"But what's the plan, then? Tell the Argents?" I said.

"I'm sorry Lora, but I'm going to take this one from you. It's getting too dangerous." I let out a huff and slumped back into my chair, knowing that protest would be useless. "Just… you have a few more weeks. I want you to enjoy them, not spend them on conflicts." He stood up from his chair, showing that we were done here. He looked at Stiles. "You're gonna get home alright?" Stiles just nodded, standing up as well.

"So…" he turned towards me. "I'll guess I'll just…"

"See you tomorrow, Stillinski." I said, nodding towards the door.

"Right." he said, mumbling a quick goodbye before leaving. Once he did, dad looked at me with one raised eyebrow.

"What?" I asked, cocking my head to the side.

"He's a nice kid." he said.

"Yeah…" I said, narrowing my eyes at him. Was he…

"Do you think he's handsome too?" he asked, a glint of childlike humour in his eyes. I let out a groan and rolled my eyes.

"Dad!"

"It's just that I haven't seen you get so close with a guy before, that's all." he said in a teasing tone.

"We've been friends before dad." I said, walking towards the door. I just hoped that dad wouldn't see me blush.

"Yeah… friends."

Before things could get worse, I walked out of the room, yelled out a "bye!" and slammed the door shut behind me.

 **A/N: I hoped you liked that chapter! Thank you for reading it as always :) I don't have much time now, so that's all for the author's note this chapter.**

 **See you in the next one!**

 **~Lilly**


	11. Chapter eleven

**Chapter eleven: Formality**

I was standing at my locker in school, taking out some last things, when Scott walked up to me.

"Hey." he said, sounding a bit confused as he leaned on the row of lockers. "I thought you weren't going to school anymore."

"I'm not." I said, taking out a bottle of water. "Just cleaning out my locker." He nodded at that, but then shook his head.

"Anyway, I think there's something I should tell you."

"There's free pizza in the cafeteria?"

"Wh- no."

"Then I'm not interested."

"It's about Stiles." he said in a singsong voice, smirking when he saw me suddenly paying attention. "I think you should know what actually happened last time you were in Beacon Hills."

I closed my eyes and let out a sigh. "Scott if this is about the fire, I already know." He frowned at me, clearly confused.

"No, I mean with you and Stiles." he said. "What do you mean with the fire?" I shook my head.

"Nothing." I said, closing my locker. "I'm all ears." Scott nodded and took a deep breath.

"Okay so first of all: You can't let Stiles know I told you this 'cause he'll kill me." I let out a laugh, but the way he looked at me told me he was serious, so I shut up and let him continue.

"You know how Stiles has had a crush on Lydia since third grade?" he asked, and I nodded. "Well, before that he had a crush on… you. But then you moved out all of a sudden. And Stiles felt pretty down, but he was stubborn and didn't really let you go. Then his mother died." he said, looking down at his feet. "He had a rough time. He'd lost you, then he lost his mother. His father he… he drank a lot after Stiles' mom died. He still had me, but he lost his mother, and he knew he wasn't going to get her back. And you… he sort of clung... onto the next best thing." he said, looking back up at me. I frowned at him.

"You mean Lydia?" I asked, and he nodded. I did recall Lydia showing me a picture of the two of us when we were young. We did look very alike back then, and I suppose that it was likely that the both of us were more similar in personality as well. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because he might not have realised it until after you came back, but he still likes you. A lot."

I didn't really know what to say. Part of me was ecstatic, and so so happy that Stiles liked me. The other part, my brain, told me to do something about it. To hook him up with Lydia, to let him go and lessen the pain that would come in only three weeks. Maybe less. Problem was: I wasn't good at repressing positive emotions. Negative, oh that was easy, I could keep those in for months.

"I think it's a bit too late, don't you?" I asked, a sad smile on my face. "Speaking of this stuff, how's it going with Allison and you?" Well that question dragged his mood down considerably, and it distracted him from the whole Stiles topic.

"She's going to the formal with Jackson." he said, a small pout on his face.

"Jackson?" I said, my face scrunching up. "That won't last long, trust me. He's a snake."

"You think?" he asked, looking at me hopefully.

"I think that you and Allison, as much as I don't trust her family, won't get separated easily." Scott didn't seem much more confident, but at least the pout was gone.

"Speaking of the formal, Lydia is looking for you." he said, a grin on his face. "Something about going shopping." My eyes widened in horror and Scott let out a laugh. "I'm going to leave you two to it." he said, walking away. I froze on the spot. You two? I turned around and found Lydia standing there, a small smile on her lips.

"I'm thinking… green." she said, eyeing me up and down. Ah fuck.

~o~

I was given a delay of execution on the shopping with Lydia, which I wouldn't have to do until the next day. That didn't mean I got a day off on that day, though. No, of course not, because Scott just couldn't resist into a fight with Derek last night without telling my dad or me, and now Derek was gone. Oh, did I mention Jackson was there too? Good fun. Anyway, Stiles and I went over to his house after both receiving a distressed phone call from McCall. That is, from the home phone, as he'd lost his.

"Call it again." Scott said. His upper body was hidden underneath his bed, where he was searching for his phone. Stiles was sitting on his desk chair, growing tired of having to call the phone all the time, and I was standing in the doorway.

"Okay, so you lost your phone, get a new one!" Stiles said, but apparently, it wasn't so easy.

"I can't afford a new one!" Scott exclaimed.

"Can we just focus on what's important here?" I said, getting more and more annoyed. "Peter visited the animal clinic after Deaton patched you up?" Scott came from under the bed and nodded.

"He's going after Allison." he said, worry seeping through his voice.

"I'll put a guy on her." I said, texting someone from the community. "He'll follow her, make sure she's safe. Though I wouldn't expect too much." I warned. "Argents aren't exactly popular." Scott nodded, understanding.

"Thank you." he said.

"Okay, but back to Derek." Stiles said, pointing at Scott. "You said he walked into open gunfire last night. He sounds pretty dead."

"The Argents wanted to use him to find the Alpha, he's not dead." Scott said, voicing my thoughts.

"We need to find him. They're probably torturing him." I said, a bad feeling stirring in my stomach. Stiles let out a groan at that.

"Can't we just… let them?"

I glared at him.

"No?" he tried. "Not even a little?"

"Don't make me slap you, Stillinski."

"You know, he was trying to kill Jackson." he said. "And then he tried to kill Scott." Oh are you kidding me? He wasn't going to kill anyone. And that's exactly what Scott said. Was this kid actually understanding the situation? Damn.

"And I'm not going to let him die." Scott then added, which made Stiles radiate disappointment.

"Can you at least think about letting him die?" he pleaded. Oh that was it. I walked over to him, smiled, and then hit him on the back of his head. Not too hard, though.

"Okay, fine!" he yelled, throwing his hands up in surrender. "Just… no slapping, alright?"

Suddenly, Scott's head shot up in the air.

"What?" I asked, prodding his shoulder when he didn't answer. "Not all of us have super hearing, you know."

"It's your dad." he then said. "He's here." I let out a groan. Dad was going to send me home, wasn't he?

He was.

~o~

Shopping for dresses with Lydia was an artform. No, scratch that, it was like a fucking sport. After trying on and retrying dresses for an hour, we were apparently done with the first round. After two more rounds, we'd finally settled for a green dress with a silver belt and leather jacket (because I insisted). We (I) decided (demanded) to take a break, and just when it was about to finish, Lydia's phone rang.

"Hey! Yeah we're on the first floor." she paused. "Okay, see you!" she hung up and looked at me. "Allison's here."

"Oh joy!" I said, clapping in my hands. We sat down and discussed my further options for dresses (aka Lydia talking and me nodding) until Allison arrived, with a rather distressed look on her face.

"What's wrong?" I asked, but she shook her head.

"Just some family business." she said, waving it off. I couldn't help but notice the necklace hanging around her neck with the Argent heirloom on it.

"You sure?" I asked, standing up and walking towards her. Could it be that her parents told her? "You seem pretty… thrown off." I said, inspecting her face. Her eyes were a bit red and her cheeks were wet. "Have you been crying? Allison wiped her cheeks and asked if we could move on with the dresses, so we did. Once we were finished (after two hours), Allison declared that she had a surprise for Lydia.

"Well?" Lydia asked as we walked out of the store. "What is it?" she looked at Allison, who had an evil smirk on her face.

"You aren't getting away with kissing Scott without some payback.. So, you are going to cancel on whatever jock you agreed on taking to the formal and go with... him." I followed the finger she was pointing with, and my eyes fell on Stiles, who just happened to accidentally spray cologne in his face inside a perfume shop.

"Oh." I said. "I was kind of going with him." Allison looked at me in surprise, but Lydia didn't seem surprised at all. If anything, she was both pleased for me and that she wouldn't have to go with Stiles. Or so she thought. "But I can totally go with Isaac instead." I quickly added. This could be a great opportunity for Stiles to get together with Lydia.

"Well then." Allison said, smiling at me to say thanks. "There you go, Lydia." The girl in question let out a groan.

"Do I have to?"

"Yes you do."

I let out a laugh at the look on Lydia's face, trying my best to ignore the bad feeling in my stomach, both because I had actually been looking forward to the formal and because of my… oh fuck it. Let's just call it a vision. I shivered involuntarily as I thought back to it.

~o~

After an elaborate discussion with Stiles, he'd agreed to go to the formal with Lydia. I'd called Isaac and asked him if he had anyone to go with yet. He hadn't, so the two of us were going. (Mainly because Stiles insisted that I still went)

Allison and I had just left the mall and had almost made it to her car when Peter walked up to us.

"Sorry, quick question." he said, smiling at us.

"No time." I said, pulling Allison along with me. Peter walked after us for a few steps, but when I threatened to call the cops he'd backed off.

"Who was that?" Allison asked, sounding distressed. We were almost jogging towards her car. "Lorraine!"

"Doesn't matter." I said, getting into the car. Allison quickly followed and sat down beside me, in the drivers seat.

"Who is he?" she repeated.

"Allison, listen to me." I said, turning to face her. "Strange things are happening in this town and even more strange things will happen. Whatever things you might think you have to do, there's always a choice. Don't do anything violent, just try to stay out of it."

"What are you talking about?" she exclaimed. In the car mirror I could see Peter walking towards us, this time he wasn't smiling.

"No time to explain. I gotta go." I said, getting out of the car, but not closing the door before telling her to go right now, which she did. By the time I turned around, Peter was already facing me.

"And, have you decided?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. "Or should I come up with a more… persuasive method?" He lifted up his hand and showed me his claws. I wanted to challenge him, see if he'd really hurt me in the middle of a parking lot, but instead I smiled.

"I'm afraid that I am no longer in the position to make those decisions."

"Daddy took the job?" he asked in an attempt to mock me. It didn't work.

"Sorry." I said smirking at him to show that I wasn't sorry at all. "You'll have to go talk to him, not me."

Peter nodded, definitely not happy with the answer, but he left me alone nonetheless. Once he was a good distance away, Scott and Stiles ran towards me (they'd been hiding behind a car), and asked if I was alright. I rolled my eyes at them, even though my heart was racing.

"Fine. Though you should go keep an eye on Allison. There is someone shadowing her, but better safe than sorry." I told Scott, who immediately left to do just that. I turned towards Stiles, whose face was a bright red from the running. And possibly Lydia.

"So…" he started, rocking back and forth on his heels. "You… really don't mind me going to the formal with Lydia?" Yes. Yes I did. But I had no right to, so I smiled and shook my head.

"We were just going as friends anyway, right?" I said, giving him a smile, which he returned, though hesitatingly.

"Yeah, of course!" he said, clapping his hands together. "Friends… But you're still going, right?" I nodded at that.

"But only because I promised you." I said, sending him a playful glare.

We started walking towards the jeep, discussing what we thought was going to happen, what Peter was going to do. Me growing more and more annoyed by the fact that I wasn't allowed to do anything about it. But hey, what can you do about it? Ugh. Nothing, that's what.

~o~

Even though I was dreading it, the night of the formal did come. Isaac had agreed to take me, but because he didn't have a car I had to drive over to his place and pick him up. So I guess I was taking him. Welp.

"Well don't you look handsome!" I said, smiling widely as Isaac got into the car. He immediately started blushing and stuttered a thanks. Once he got into his seat he seemed to have recovered, as he complimented me on my dress with a (for his doing, extremely confident) smile.

"Oh, this old thing?" I said, looking down at it. "Only wasted a few hundred dollars and a couple of irreplaceable hours of my life."

"Worth it?" Isaac asked, smirking at me.

"I guess we'll see about that." I said, pushing down the gas pedal and driving off.

~o~

We arrived just in time to see Lydia jump out of Stiles' jeep as we walked towards the school. She was flattening her dress and looking disgusted in general as Stiles tried his best to get the Jeep's door to shut.

"Hey Jackson." Lydia then said. I looked to my right, where Jackson and Allison walking towards the school. "You look handsome."

"Well obviously." Jackson said, stopping. "It's hugo boss." Oh I could've puked right there and then. Right on that stupid smirking face of his.

"Too bad you can't buy a less shitty personality, right Jackson?" I said cheerfully, returning the glare he gave me as he and Allison walked further towards the school. "Dickhead." I muttered, making Isaac laugh.

"Speaking of dickheads." I said, turning back towards Lydia and Stiles. "Stiles, looking good." I said, and he rolled his eyes at me. "And Lydia, beautiful as always." I said, earning a small smile from the girl. Stupid jerk Jackson had really thrown her off.

"Well, I don't know about you guys." Isaac spoke up. "But I just had two shots on my way over here and I really want to go party." I laughed at the surprised look on Stiles' face. This wasn't the Isaac he was used to. Truth be told, it wasn't exactly the Isaac I was used to either. Just to be sure nothing went wrong, I made a mental not to not let Isaac drink any more alcohol.

"Drunk boy is right." Lydia said, straightening her back and pulling herself together.. "Let's do this." she said, sticking her nose up in the air and walking towards the school. Stiles muttered an apology before following her.

"Well then," Isaac said, holding up his arm for me. "Shall we?"

"Aren't you charming?" I asked, intertwining his arm with mine. "We shall."

~o~

The formal was surprisingly fun. It was in the gym, and the music was pretty good, most people were in a good mood, and it was very amusing to see a couple of slightly drunk teenagers attempting to dance. Isaac and I were sitting on the bottom step of the bleachers when Scott suddenly stood next to us.

"Are you even allowed to be here?" I asked. His grades were… well just plain disastrous, and coach forbade him to come.

"Maybe." he said, sounding distressed and looking like a lost puppy as he scanned the crowd for Allison.

"She's over there, with Jackson." I said, pointing to show him. "Doesn't look too happy."

"Wonder why." Isaac mumbled, watching as the two walked to the dancefloor. Jackson, being the dick he is, stopped just in front of the table where Stiles and Lydia were sitting, both seemingly bored out of their minds. Stiles turned to Lydia, saying something, to which she responded with a single word. He then let out a sigh, stood up and said something else to her, looking more confident. I couldn't help but smirk. Come on, Lydia, just say yes.

Next to me, Scott was smirking.

"What?" I asked, turning towards him.

"Oh." Isaac said, sounding surprised. I let out a groan and turned towards him.

"What?" I repeated. He just pointed forwards. I turned my head yet again and saw Stiles walking towards us.

"Wanna dance?" he yelled over the music.

"Did you just ditch Lydia Martin?" I yelled back. He looked over his shoulder, towards the table where Lydia was still sitting. I followed his gaze and saw Lydia smirking as she gave me a wink.

"Actually, we ditched each other." he yelled, holding out his arm. "Dance?" I didn't even get a chance to answer, as both Isaac and Scott pulled me off my seat and pushed me towards him. I firmly told myself the only reason they succeeded was because one of them had superhuman strength. Just as Stiles and I walked off, coach's voice boomed through the gym.

"I see you McCall!" he then started ranting as he tried to run over to Scott, who kept running and hiding. Stiles and I looked at each other and burst out in laughter as we followed him with our eyes. Coach eventually caught up with him, but not before Scott managed to grab a hold of Danny and start slowdancing with him.

"McCall! You're not supposed to…" coach trailed off. "What the hell are you doing?" By now the music had stopped and the gym fell silent as everyone stared at coach.

"Yes, coach?" Scott asked, stepping a bit closer to Danny. Coach looked at the two in bewilderment, his eyes wide.

"Oh come on coach!" I yelled, so everyone could hear. "You can't be serious!"

"Okay…" coach said, holding his hands up in the air and chuckling nervously. "Ho, ho, I wasn't- I just meant he isn't supposed to- not that he shouldn-" he started laughing. "Just dance everybody! It's a dance! Dance!" he yelled, laughing like a madman as he ran off.

"Oh that was brilliant." I said, tears in my eyes from laughing. The music started playing again, another slow song.

"Well, let's skip the awkwardness of this." I said, putting my arms over his shoulders. He froze for a few second, but the put his arms around my waist. My heart did a little jump, and for just that one song (or was it two?), I forgot all the promises I'd made to myself. No keeping distant, no hiding emotions, just… dancing.

I was never good at keeping those promises anyway.

~o~

I wasn't sure how much time had passed when there came a more upbeat song, but it felt like it wouldn't ever be long enough. Stiles slowly let go of me and we started jumping up and down to the beat, and Stiles even dared to do some awful dance moves. The fun stopped fairly quickly once I got a sudden, banging headache.

"You okay?" he asked, frowning as I held my head in my hands.

"I think I need some air." I said. He nodded and led me out of the gym, which was good as I kept my eyes closed in pain for half of the walk. The fresh air outside was nice, but had little effect on my headache. Stiles and I sat down on the floor with out backs against the wall.

"Have you seen Jackson?" someone asked. I opened my eyes and saw it was Lydia.

"No, sorry." Stiles said.

"Are you alright?" Lydia asked, looking at me with a frown on her face.

"Yeah, just a bad…" my voice trailed off. "Migraine." Oh fuck. Not now, please not now. "I need to call my dad." I said, pushing myself up and walking away. I could hear Lydia mumble a sorry and her heels clicking on the ground as she walked away. By the time I got out my phone, Stiles was standing next to me.

"You sure you're okay?" he asked, putting his hands on my shoulder. My headache got even worse, and a familiar image flashed in front of my eyes.

" _Lydia!" Stiles yelled, running over the lacrosse field at school. I turned around and saw Lydia standing in the middle of the field, staring at Stiles. Behind her, Peter was running towards her, his teeth bare._

"You need to go find Lydia, now." I said, trying to make my voice sound as strong as possible. "Peter is here. He's going to attack Lydia."

"Do you mean your vi-"

"She's on the lacrosse field, and she might die. Now go." I said, dialing my dad's number. Stiles nodded and ran off towards the field. I cursed myself for not having thought of my vision, but something told me there was nothing I could do about it.

" _Lora?"_ my dad's voice came from my phone. Okay, keep this as short as possible.

"Peter is here, I just got a migraine, the symptoms have started, I got that… vision again, and I need backup because…" my voice trailed off as I saw Chris Argent dragging Jackson out of the woods, followed by more hunters. "The Argents are here too."

 **A/N: Shit's about to go down! Wonder what will happen...**

 **Here's a note on a review I got (thank you for the review, by the way): What I meant with "it wont end pretty"? Well I guess you'll find out next week because I'll be uploading the final chapter!**

 **Thank you all so much for reading, and I'll see you next chapter!**

 **~Lilly**


	12. Chapter twelve

**Chapter twelve: Code breaker**

We protect those who can't protect themselves.

They hunt those who hunt them.

These are our codes. Sometimes, just sometimes, we break them.

~o~

All hell was breaking loose. Allison had seen Scott shift. Lydia got bit by Peter. Stiles was nowhere to be found. Derek was still missing. Both hunters and protectors were gathering men (as much as they could on such short notice, which wasn't much.)

And, with all that going on, I was sitting in a pet clinic with a migraine.

"Why can't I go out?" I moaned. I knew that I was acting like a child, something I usually didn't do, but I couldn't help it. If there was something going on, I wanted to be included.

"You know why." dad said. He was sitting next to me, on the workbench. "You can't go out there in your condition."

"Then why aren't you going?" I asked, looking up at him. "Someone has to help. Scott will end up getting killed by Kate. Or Peter will end up murdering everyone." Dad let out a chuckle at that.

"I don't think he's going to kill everyone." he said. Barely a second after, the banging in my head got even harder. I winced in pain and felt my muscles tense, then relax.

"There you go again." dad said, putting a hand behind my head to support me and let me fall down gently instead of banging my head against the metal.

~o~

When I woke up, dad was gone. But I wasn't alone. Deaton was standing in the corner of the room, filling up syringes.

"I hope those aren't for me." I said, pushing myself up from the workbench so I could sit. Deaton chuckled and shook his head.

"No, they're not."

"Where's my dad?"

"He went to do his job. You did ask him to go." I frowned at that bit.

"I did?"

Deaton shook his head again and turned around. "How many times do you think you've passed out? How long have you been here?" My mind got dizzy by just thinking about the questions, but I answered anyway.

"I don't know… passed out? Two times? How long…" I looked at the clock on the wall. It was almost ten o'clock, but it was dark outside, so it would have been… "A day?" I exclaimed, wincing at the volume of my own voice.

"Almost." Deaton added, the calmth in his voice annoyed me. I've been here for an entire day and he was just… just- argh, I don't know.

"What did I miss?" I asked.

"Well, the last time you father called me… he said that Stiles was okay, Lydia was managing just fine, Jackson was… well to quote: 'still a moron' -I managed to let out a scoff at that one-, Scott found Derek and they were heading to the Hale house."

"When was this?" I asked.

"About… twenty minutes ago?" he said, shrugging. Alright. That's it. I'm going out there. No way that shit it going down and I won't be there. Nope. So I pushed myself off the workbench and started walking towards the door.

"You wouldn't be able to even get there in time." Deaton reminded me, not even attempting to stop me. And he had a fair point. Problem: I didn't care. So I just kept walking, but this time Deaton followed me, stopping me just in front of the counter.

"Please, I want to go." I said, trying to pull myself loose from his grip, but I didn't have enough strength at that moment. "My friends are in danger." I said, a wave of energy surging through me at the realisation. They could be dying right now. And I wouldn't be there to help them. No, no way. I pulled myself loose, and when Deaton tried to grab me again, I hit his temple with my fist, somehow knocking him out. I hadn't thought I would manage. Sure, usually I could but… no time to think about it.

Feeling determined, I opened the counter's gate and walked out of the clinic, tripping over my own feet as I did. Maybe this "surge of energy" could've done a bit of a better job at fixing my coordination.

~o~

It didn't take long for the energy to wear off. Luckily, it also didn't take long for me to steal Deaton's car. (Don't worry, I was going to give it back) As the energy of which I supposed it was adrenaline wore off, my migraine came back. And I didn't have Deaton's painkillers with me. Great. Okay, think. What other symptoms did he say there would be?

Well, one was obviously the migraine. And then there was something about blacking out. I was reminded what the third symptom was by the sharp pain in my back returning. Guess the painkillers I'd taken before were really wearing off then.

Once I arrived at the Hale house, I realised I had no gun. Or other weapon. Well, in the scene that way playing in front of me, there definitely wasn't a lack of guns. There were five, actually. Kate's, Chris', dad's, and two protectors'. At least I thought they were as they were all pointing at Kate. Yes, including Chris. Maybe the other two weren't protectors after all. There was no way of telling, really.

"Put the gun down, Kate." he said. She didn't move. A loud gunshot echoed through the woods, making me wince. When I opened my eyes again, Kate was lying on the floor, grabbing her shoulder and wincing in pain. She then raised her gun again, this time pointing in a different direction. It all went so fast, within a second she'd raised her gun and fired it.

No.

Oh God no, please no.

I didn't move. I sat frozen in the car, but somehow this was the first time everyone at the scene noticed me. When Kate saw me, she smirked. Oh that was it.

Anger started boiling up inside of me. They say mourning comes in five stages: disbelief, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance. The first stage lasted about two seconds, but I was completely skipping the second one.

The migraine was gone, but the pain in my back was intensifying as I got out of the car and practically marched towards where his body was lying on the ground. I crouched down next to him and clutched his hand.

"Don't you dare die on me." I whispered, but as I looked at the bullet wound I knew he had no chance. It was a near clear shot, he'd have seconds.

"I love you." he said, his voice weak. Before I had a chance to answer, his eyes closed and his grip on my hand loosened.

"Love you too, dad." I said, letting him go. Then, I grabbed his gun and stood up, aiming it at Kate, whose gun had been taken by Chris.

"Lorraine, don't." one of the protectors (since they hadn't shot me I assumed they were) said, trying to get closer to me, but backing off when I lashed out at them.

"You bitch." I said,still dazed by shock and anger at first but soon raising my voice. "First you burn my mother, then you shoot my father. Anyone else you'd like to take?" Silence fell and everyone froze as the door to the Hale house creaked open. Everyone but me aimed their guns at the door.

"Wh- what's that?" Allison said out of nowhere. I frowned and looked at the place where she was standing, her bow in her hand. I hadn't even noticed her before. By the looks of it she'd come there with Kate. Also her father wouldn't have allowed her to come. Great.

Just in front of her, Scott stood up from the ground, his eyes glowing. "It's the Alpha."

He was running around, way too fast for someone to be able to hit him. But he was hitting us, tackling us to the ground one by one. After he tackled Allison, I knew I could well be next. Something told me not to lie on my back, so I slowly dropped down facing the earth. I watched as the Alpha tackled the others, but I was ready to jump up any time he'd try something. Eventually Kate was the only one left standing.

"Come on!" she yelled, picking up one of the protectors' guns from the floor and taking aim whenever she heard something. Of course, by the time she'd finished aiming, Peter had long gone to a different spot. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he showed up next to her in human form and grabbed her wrist, making her fire her gun several times into the air before crushing the bones. He then grabbed her by the throat and threw her towards the house, which he dragged her into afterwards.

"No!" Allison yelled, pushing herself off the ground and running into the house. Funny, I was thinking the same thing. Well, the "no" part anyway.

Because if Kate Argent was going to die, I sure as hell was going to be the one to do it.

I slowly pushed myself of the ground, rage pumping through my veins. As I walked towards the house, it felt like my back burst open. I ignored it and kept walking, only to stop at the door when I pushed it open. I frowned as I looked at my hand. Or more specifically, my nails. Or should I say claws? I traced my finger around them. They weren't like a werewolf's claws, more like a long, pointed black human nail. What the hell?

I decided not to dwell on it too much and walked further into the house, glad now I knew that I had some weapon to tear her throat out with.

Allison was standing on one side of the room, whilst Peter and Kate were standing on the other side, Peter's claws placed on Kate's neck.

"Let her go." I said, walking past Allison. Peter's eyes widened as he saw me, and Kate looked terrified.

"Why?" Peter asked, recovering from his shock quickly. "What are you going to do, Lora?" I gritted my teeth as he used my nickname.

"You know what." I said, glaring at him. Even though I was angry, I wasn't stupid. Attacking Peter would only free Kate. And I wasn't killing him, not now I knew that he saved me. He smiled at me, probably thinking the same thing.

"Well, in that case…" he said, before swinging his arm through the air. Blood splattered against the window as Kate fell towards the floor, her throat slashed wide open. Before I could even say anything, he turned to Allison.

"Well, I was going to give her a chance to apologise…" he said, wiping the blood off his claws. "But then again, she never would've meant it." He started walking towards her, but stopped when Scott and Derek showed up, both shifted into werewolf form.

"Run." Scott said, and Allison did. I didn't.

"You've had your revenge Peter." I said, my voice strong. All the physical pain was gone now. "Leave it at that." Peter just smirked at me. No such luck.

"Hold him off." I said, running out of the house.

All the people lying on the ground were either knocked out or… dead. I ran towards my dad, hoping, just hoping that he'd brought wolfsbane bullets. When I put my hand on his right pocket I sighed in relief. He'd brought a second gun, undoubtedly fill with them.

"Lorraine?" Stiles yelled. I looked up and saw him and Jackson stepping out of Jackson's car. His mouth was hanging open and his eyes were wide. "What the hell happened to you?"

"I don't know!" I yelled back, cocking the gun and aiming it at the house. "Now get the hell out of here, Peter's gone apeshit!" As if on cue, Scott got thrown out of a window, and soon after the Alpha jumped out. I instantly fired a bullet, hitting him in his arm. He growled in pain, but didn't make a move to attack me.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Stiles throwing something at the Alpha, who caught it. It was a chemistry flask. No… it couldn't be. I almost let out a laugh when I realised: self-igniting molotov cocktail. Guess Lydia was the one to save the day.

If only the Alpha hadn't caught it.

"Oh." Stiles said, looking both terrified and disappointed. I rolled my eyes; it wasn't that hard. I aimed my gun at the flask, fired, and… well, fire. The Alpha's arm burst in flames, and Stiles let out a whoop in victory. Jackson then threw a second flask, which set the rest of his body aflame. Meanwhile, I kept shooting bullets, and Scott had thrown Allison her bow, so she was shooting arrows at him.

Soon, Peter lay on the ground, back in human form and covered in burns. Scott and Allison were kissing, Chris was back on his feet, and Derek walked out of the house. He looked at me with… well it was hard to tell, it was Derek. He was frowning, but he did that most of the time so who knows how he felt. He looked from me to Peter and raised an eyebrow.

"Just slash his throat already." I said. "Put him out of his misery." And so he did. Much to Scott's confusion.

"What did he do?" he asked. Derek turned around, his eyes glowing a bright red.

"I'm the alpha now." he said, his voice deep and powerful.

~o~

In the end, the two protectors (I was right) had woken up and they had returned Deaton's car. Chris had brought both Scott and Allison home, and Jackson had taken off. Which left just me, Stiles (who'd refused to leave), and what was left of my dad. Jason was coming to pick us up, but it would take fifteen more minutes. In which I didn't want to think about what had just happened, but Stiles had something to show me.

I'd noticed something heavy on my back, but…

"Wings?" I said, looking over my shoulder and indeed seeing black feathers. "Oh you've got to be kidding me." I looked back at the picture he'd taken. They were folded in, but they almost reached my ankles and each one was about as broad as my back.

"They do look pretty badass." Stiles said, managing to make me chuckle a bit. "You think you can fly?"

"I honestly have no idea, since the-" I froze as I heard twigs snapping somewhere behind us. "Did you…"

"Yeah." he said, pushing himself off the ground and turning around to look. "If there's some sort of weird supernatural coyote in there, I swear to God I'm done with this town." I smiled, but took out dad's gun nonetheless. "Stay here, I'm going to check it out."

"Stay here?" Stiles yelled after me as I walked into the woods. "You know this is how every single horror movie starts? And it always ends up with one of us dead? No?" His voice faded the further I walked, and eventually he stopped talking and it was completely silent and I was alone in a dark forest. Even though his voice had stopped, I was pretty sure Stiles was following me as I could hear twigs snapping behind me followed by soft curses. But as I said: Alone in a dark forest. Which means you can't judge me for nearly screaming when someone suddenly landed in front of me. Yes, that's right. Landed. Whoever he was, he had wings just like mine.

"Hello Lorraine." he said, smirking at me. "Glad you made it." I narrowed my eyes at him.

"I wasn't aware that we arranged a meetup."

He laughed at that. He was around his mid-twenties, and had dark hair and tanned skin. Or that might've been the fact that the only source of light was the moon, I don't know. "I meant that I'm glad you didn't die. Honestly, you'll be quite the adding to our little team."

"Are you going to explain anything to me or are you just going to act all suave and mysterious?"

"How about I just show you?" he asked, holding out his arm.

"How about no…" I said, stepping away from him and aiming my gun. "I'd really hate to shoot you, but you aren't taking me anywhere."

He laughed and looked at the gun as if it were a waterpistol. "I'd like to see you try. And, unfortunately for you, you're going to have to come with me." He then ran forwards and grabbed my wrist. As soon as his claws/nails/whatever dug into my skin, my vision started to blur. Crap. I wish I could've slapped him when he continued talking to me, the smugness dripping through his voice. "I'm Alex, by the way."

 **A/N: Whew… that was… quite something! Lorraine didn't die in the end but… her father did. Of course this isn't the end of the series, because this story will be continued in:** _ **The Protector: The Buildup**_ **And I hope I'll see all of you there! (Note:** ** _The Protector: The Buildup_ has now been uploaded and finished!)**

 **Throughout the story, I tried to drop a few hints of what would happen with Lorraine, and I think a good part of you managed to at least suspect what was going to happen.**

 **Speaking of what is going to happen: I've started writing the first few chapters of the next story, and you'll soon figure out that it'll be very different from this one. Especially Lorraine's behaviour: since she won't be dying, she might allow herself to show how she feels about Stiles. But hey, who knows? Well, I do.**

 **The first real chapter of the next story will be uploaded one month, as I need time to write a few chapters ahead for when I get busy (and I tend to do that). And from then on there'll be weekly update unless stated otherwise.**

 **Notice that I said "real chapter"? Well that's because just after updating this story, I'll make the next one. The "first" chapter will be slightly shorter than usual, around 1-1.5k I should think. I won't be giving away too much, but from the title (Meanwhile in Beacon Hills) you should be able to conclude a few things ;)**

 **Thank you all so much for sticking with this story till the end, and I'll see you in the next one!**

 **~Lilly**


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